Software and information technology are nowadays incorporated in almost every field of human life and activity. Unfortunately, typical software product available on the market features 3-5 errors per 1000 lines of the source code. These errors occur for various reasons: from software design and production errors to errors that are deliberately built in the software code.

Measuring instruments with embedded software are very often used in protection of the human and animal health, environmental protection, general technical safety and commercial transactions. Obviously, assuring the quality of such software is inevitable. Software testing (validation & verification) is the basic activity for improvement and confirmation of its’ quality.

Testing of the metrological software is a relatively new activity, both in Slovenia and worldwide. MIRS Department of information technology in metrology started its metrological SW testing activities already in 1997. Our procedures base on international software product quality and testing standards like ISO/IEC 9126 and ISO/IEC 12119. Requirements upon which the software evaluation is performed may be legislative (national or international), guidance documents (i.e. WELMEC 2.3 or WELMEC 7.2) or defined by the customer. Applied software evaluation methods and strategies originate from the literature (Glenford Myers: The Art of Software testing), international standards (EN 61508:2002/2003) or expert organisations (UK DTI Software support for metrology).

The focus of our software testing activities is fulfilment of needs of Slovenian manufacturers of measuring instruments. However, we are open for broader cooperation, especially now when the implementation of MID is approaching and software evaluation may be required by either manufacturers of measuring instruments or notified bodies performing conformity assessment that do not have their own software evaluation capabilities.

Our most significant SW examination resource is the knowledge of the team. In addition to that we use:

- several “reference” programming languages (National Instruments LabVIEW™, MathWorks MATLAB™, Microsoft VStudio.NET™, …),

- tools for monitoring the communication lines,

- professional editors,

- smartcard programming/emulation tools and

in-circuit emulators; for the most demanding tasks.

We plan the accreditation of our software testing laboratory according to the international standard ISO/IEC17025 before enforcement of the EU Directive on measuring instruments – MID (October 30th, 2006).

Contact:

Roman Flegar

Metrology Institute of the Republic of Slovenia

Laboratory for Information Technology in Metrology

Grudnovo nabrežje 17

1000 Ljubljana

phone. +386 1 244 27 00

fax +386 1 244 27 14

More information obout verification and validation of the metrological software   

Our software evaluation references comprise:

- Practical experience in validation of software of legal measuring instruments (weighting instruments, electrical energy meters, calorimeters, correctors, automatic level gauges, speed measuring instruments, taximeters) according to requirements stated in WELMEC guides (2.3, 7.2) or Slovenian metrological regulations;

- Practical experience in validation of software of laboratory automation systems (temperature measurement and calibration, mass measurement) according to requirements of ISO/IEC 17025;

- Work in technical committees and international projects for preparation of technical regulations and guidance documents concerning metrological software:

    - Chairmanship of OIML TC 5 “Electronic instruments and software” and collaboration in small MIRS-PTB-LNE working group preparing draft of OIML document “D-SW: General Requirements for Software Controlled Measuring Instruments”,

    - Active participation (Leading WP4: “Future aspects”) in EU 5th FP project MID- Software (the result was preparation of WELMEC 7.2: Software Guide (Measuring Instruments Directive 2004/22/EC)),

    - Active participation in EU 5th FP project SoftTools METRONET, especially WP 3 (Advanced Tools for Metrological Databases and Software Validation),

    - Active participation in the work of WELMEC WG7,

- Publications in the field of metrological software,

- Organisation of workshops:

    - RID: MID-Software Regional Information Day, Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 24th, 2003;

    - FASIT: Workshop on Future Aspects of Software and IT in Legal Metrology, Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 25th and 26th, 2003;

    - International Workshop 'From Data Acquisition to Data Processing and Retrieval', Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 13-15, 2004.