Dr. Rainer Gerlich System and Software Engineering Information

Dr. Rainer Gerlich System and Software Enginnering was founded in 1996 as individual company, taking the acronym BSSE until 2022 and GSSE since 2022. GSSE has a long experience in space software engineering starting in 1984 the founder of GSSE, was employee of Dornier Space Division from 1984 until 1996. At GSSE the work on software technology and an automated lifecycle was continued, and continuously improved by the feedback from real projects run at GSSE, in part in the course of technology studies for ESA (European Space Agency). In 2000 GSSE delivered in support of the MSL project (Material Science Laboratory) the toolset ISG (Instantaneous System Generation) by which the complete real-time infrastructure of the distributed MSL system and the complete chain from data acquisition to telemetry frame generation - including the verification environment - was automatically generated without any manual intervention from semi-formal specifications. Since its launch in 2009 - delayed due to the Columbia accident - MSL is successfully working on-board of the ISS. 2005 - 2007 GSSE applied the DARTT tool (Dynamic Ada Random Test Tool) to the Cat. A and Cat. C software of the ATV (Automatic Transfer Vehicle). In 2004 GSSE started the development of the DCRTT tool for C and C++, which has been applied to oftware packages of Cat. B and Cat. C in contracts with ESA and the German Space Agency (DLR-RFA). DCRTT is continuously improved by the feedback from its use in context of real software, and puts the focus on robustness testing and run-time monitoring. For DLR GSSE evaluated verification methods and tools regarding correctness and completeness of fault reports, and discussed pro's and con's regarding dynamic and static analysis tools and methods. Currently (2021) GSSE is involved in verification of AI software used in critical systems, and in applying AI for transformation of natural text specifications towards a more formal notation to support an automated lifecycle.