Tasking subsidiary LDRA has announced an all-in-one package for software certification requirements in electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) applications.

By combining requirements traceability, software analysis and compliance reporting into one streamlined workflow, the package accelerates the development and certification of safe, secure and reliable embedded software applications such as avionics, flight controls, battery management and payload management systems that must meet functional safety and security standards.

As the aerospace and defence market moves to more autonomous, electrified and regional aerospace applications for urban air mobility, development teams continue to be challenged by greater software complexity and rising compliance costs. For example, electrification of systems increases the challenge of meeting level A requirements. At the same time, because a power failure can result in a complete system failure, the path to level A compliance is that much more important.

By providing a tailored bundle, the package helps these teams reduce risk and improve productivity while expediting certifications for standards such as DO-178C, DO-330, DO-326A/B, DO-356A, MIL882E and JSSSEH and conformance with the open-source Future Airborne Capability Environment (Face) technical standard.

“Being able to replace individual traceability, software analysis and compliance reporting with a single, streamlined workflow is truly a game changer for software developers working on eVTOL programmes that support electric propulsion, vertical take-off and landing control systems, and others that enable urban air mobility,” said Ian Hennell, operations director at UK firm LDRA. “Backed by hundreds of level A certifications and supported by LDRA certification services, our integrated package gives both established aerospace manufacturers or systems integrators and emerging eVTOL innovators confidence that their software can pass certification audits the first time while reducing cost and eliminating complexities.”

In addition to supporting industry standards, the package integrates with modern dev-sec-ops platforms to enable and extend continuous integration, continuous deployment and continuous verification. Integrations with Tasking compilers and debug and trace products further reduce the cost and risk of development and certification. It also provides multi-core worst-case execution time analysis for modern safety processors, including the Arm Cortex-R and Risc-V.

Instead of requiring developers to source, integrate and maintain multiple verification tools, the package bundles all the essential capabilities required to demonstrate compliance at high assurance levels, including:

• Bi-directional requirements traceability (high- and low-level)
• Requirements-based testing (host or target)
• Static and dynamic analysis for code quality and coverage
• Compliance with coding standards such as Misra and Cert
• Object code verification
• Unit and system-level testing (host and target)
• Security analysis and reporting
• Data and control coupling analysis
• Worst-case execution time analysis
• Tool qualification packages
• Full life-cycle support, from requirements through verification
• Extended Tasking compiler and debug-trace tool integrations

LDRA showed the productivity package at last week’s Embedded World North America in Anaheim.

LDRA (www.ldra.com) was acquired by Tasking (www.tasking.com) earlier this year.

• LDRA’s tool suite now provides functional safety and cyber-security software verification capabilities to meet airworthiness requirements for airborne systems. These capabilities enhance existing security analysis, verification and reporting capabilities to simplify and accelerate compliance with aviation cyber-security standards DO-326B and DO-356A up to SAL 3 as well as the airborne software safety standard DO-178C up to DAL A for commercial aviation. This integrated approach reduces functional safety and security certification risks while lowering costs and speeding time to market.