What Is Requirements Traceability?

Requirements traceability is the process of creating a digital thread that connects models, tests, and code with requirements to help you understand the impact of changes and reduce waste in the design life cycle.

Traceability analysis is required for compliance with industry standards such as ISO^® 26262 and IEC 61508 in the automotive industry, DO-178C in commercial aviation, EN 50128 for railways, and IEC 62304 in the medical industry, as well as general software development standards such as CMMI and Automotive SPICE^®* (ASPICE).

Common tasks for systems engineers, software architects, and developers working to achieve requirements traceability for Simulink^®, System Composer™, and Stateflow^® include:

• Viewing the requirement details within the development environment where they are being implemented
• Creating traceability from requirements in requirements management tools to the design, tests, and test results
• Generating traceability reports that include design, test, and requirement information in a single document
• Identifying the design and tests that are linked to requirements and navigating to external requirements
• Understanding the impact of a requirement change on the design and tests

The Simulink environment provides capabilities for efficient linking, analysis, and reporting of requirements traceability. Additionally, you can formalize requirements and analyze them for consistency, completeness, and correctness. The formalized requirements can be bound to design models for verifying compliance.

For details, see Simulink, System Composer, and Requirements Toolbox™.

* Automotive SPICE^® is a registered trademark of the Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. (VDA).