FAA (RSC) acceptance for safety-critical software

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 1 July 2006

115

Keywords

Citation

(2006), "FAA (RSC) acceptance for safety-critical software", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 78 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2006.12778dad.007

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


FAA (RSC) acceptance for safety-critical software

FAA (RSC) acceptance for safety-critical software

Keywords: Aircraft safety, Aerospace industry

Today's avionics systems integrators and developers are continually charged to do more with less while at the same time meet demanding cost and time schedules. Software reuse is an important aspect of controlling these software costs as well as improving time-to-market and quality of software systems, especially where the system needs to go through a rigorous certification process. Until today, however, no safety-critical embedded operating system (OS) had received reusable software component (RSC) acceptance by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

LynuxWorks reports that it has become the first embedded OS vendor to receive an Advisory Circular AC 20- 148 acceptance letter from the FAA. With RSC approval of the LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 real-time operating system (RTOS), embedded systems integrators and developers can consider the OS portion of the safety-critical software code and supporting DO-178B artefacts for reuse in other system designs with other software components without the need for full recertification. As a result, integrators and developers can significantly reduce the time and cost of achieving FAA certification and further reduce the risk involved in redevelopment efforts across multiple safety-critical systems.

“The time consuming and expensive certification process for safety-critical software has been a challenge for developers of such systems,” said Dr Inder Singh, CEO of LynuxWorks. “The LynxOS-178 RSC will lead to a dramatic reduction in the cost and schedule risks associated with such projects. This is very consistent with LynuxWorks' focus on software reuse through our conformance with open standards and our RTOS and Linux dual product strategy.”

LynuxWorks' RSC acceptance is said to represent the first standards-based approach for software reuse in airborne systems and equipment to allow system integrators and embedded developers to reuse their existing software. LynxOS- 178 addresses system developers' need to meet FAA certification by providing a time, space and resource partitioned commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) OS that fully satisfies the objectives of the DO-178B, level A and the ARINC 653 standard as well as full conformance with the IEEE POSIX Standard. Currently, any time a systems integrator or developer wants to integrate components of any other RTOS or any previously certified DO- 178B software in multiple hardware, each new hardware/software configuration or system must be recertified. In other words, integrators and developers cannot take full advantage of the software's existing certification across other multiple platforms, but instead must go through the entire certification process for each new system they build. The RSC acceptance letter from the FAA for LynxOS-178 can be used to support virtually any FAA Technical Standard Order.

“In addition to avionics flight systems, safety-critical software is in embedded military application environments such as weapons systems,” said Stephen Balacco, Embedded Systems Market Analyst at Venture Development Corporation. “Today, software drives cost and schedules of embedded system designs. As a result, developers have a need to leverage software reuse from previous development efforts wherever possible and no longer develop software from scratch for each embedded project. RSC has the potential to streamline the software certification process in meeting safety-critical requirements with a reusable component that has been proven in other designs and helps developers reduce design complexity and time-to-market.”

“With the industry's first RSC time and space partitioned RTOS, and by following the guidance of AC 20-148, LynuxWorks raises the bar in delivering the lowest risk solution for Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) developers,” said Joe Wlad, Director of Product Management and FAA DER for LynuxWorks. “Our LynxOS-178 certification artefacts provide IMA developers with guidance on how to build and certify IMA applications more easily. We set out to address a critical customer pain point in helping systems engineers get their future, innovative safety-critical avionics systems to market faster and at lower cost. No other embedded OS vendor can make claim to decreasing the time required for software development and overall costs of avionics equipment that LynuxWorks is now providing in the market today.”

Details available from: LynuxWorks, Inc., Tel: +1 408 979 4404, E-mail: klong@lnxw.com

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