Proceedings of 6th International Conference in Software Engineering for Defence Applications

Not only the military world but the whole defence and security community has always demonstrated interest and expectation in the evolution of software application and in the way it has been designed and manufactured through the years. The first real standard in the area of software quality was originated by the US DOD (2167A and 498) to demonstrate the need for this particular user, the US Department of Defence, to implement repeatable and controllable processes to produce software to be used in high-reliability applications. Military systems, security systems, and most of the mission critical systems rely more and more on software than older systems did. Security in airports and train stations rely more and more on the correct functioning of specific software applications. This reliance on software and its reliability is now the most important aspect of military systems, and the same will happen in the close related which share the same “mission criticality”. SEDA has, of course, a special attention for the military area which is seen as one of the most challenging and then as a benchmark for software reliability. The military-specific area of application includes mission data systems, radars/sensors, flight/engine controls, communications, mission planning/execution, weapons deployment, test infrastructure, programme life cycle management systems, software integration laboratories, battle laboratories, and centres of excellence. Even if it is slightly less significant, the same scenario applies to the land component of the armed forces. Software is now embedded in all the platforms used in operations, starting from the wearable computers of the dismounted soldier up to various levels of command and control, and every detail of modern operations relies on the correct behaviour of some software product. Many of the mentioned criticalities are shared with other public security sectors such as the police, the firefighters, and the public health system. The rising awareness of the critical aspects of the described software diffusion convinced the Italian Army General Staff that a moment of reflection and discussion was needed and with the help of the universities, the SEDA conference cycle was started. For the third conference SEDA 2014, it was decided to shift the focus of the event slightly away from the traditional approach to look at innovative software engineering. Considering the title: software engineering for defence application, this time, the emphasis was deliberately put on the “defence application” part. For the first time, papers not strictly connected to the “pure” concept of software engineering were accepted together with others that went deep into the heart of this science. The reasons for this change were, first of all, the need for this event to evolve and widen its horizon and secondly the need to find more opportunities for the evolution of military capabilities. In a moment of economic difficulty, it is of paramount importance to find new ways to acquire capabilities at a lower level of funding using innovation as a facilitator. It was deemed very important, in a period of scarce resources to look ahead and leverage from dual use and commercial technologies. Software is, as said, a very pervasive entity and is almost everywhere, even in those areas where it is not explicitly quoted. A mention was made to the changes in the area of software engineering experienced in the Italian Army and the starting of a new methodology which would then become “Italian Army Agile” and then DSSEA® iAgile