LDRA Committed to Support All Aerospace Platforms for Certification

To achieve compliance with the FAA’s software standard DO-178C Level A, certification applicants must prove that their system and its application work as expected not only at the source-code level, but also at the object-code level. Problems determining the cause of failures in the medical and automotive industries are also leading to the same technique becoming increasingly required in IEC 62304 and ISO 26262 certifications. For systems needing such stringent compliance, the LDRA tool suite traces requirements to the underlying assembler code to confirm no errors have been introduced when the higher-level programming language devolves into low-level object code.

“LDRA’s reputation for standards-compliant expertise and tools has been established over nearly 40 years of helping companies successfully achieve rigorous, safety-critical certifications and standards compliance,” noted Ian Hennell, LDRA Operations Director. “Since the company’s inception, LDRA has focused on creating tools that improve and automate the development of reliable software. LDRA supports any client environment, offering the broadest range of supported architectures, software development tools and real-time operating systems involved in safety- and mission-critical applications.”

With this interface, the LDRA tool suite drives the test environment to automate the exchange of execution history and test data using Atmel’s AVR Studio 4.18 command-line utilities, AVRISP mkII device, and an onboard serial port. The collation of the LDRA tool suites for both Assembler and C languages with the AVR-GCC compiler streamlines the interface for the developers, enabling them to efficiently verify that the AVR-GCC-generated object code accurately and completely represents the application’s C source code operational requirements. Developers can fully verify the application on target, automating the functionality required to meet the stringent demands of DO-178C Level A.

Hennell adds, “This port is yet another example of how LDRA will support any client environment, and for companies seeking certification assistance, we also offer comprehensive certification services at a fixed price. Given our global economic climate, we believe customers should have complete confidence that their certification efforts are accurate, complete, and fully compliant and will be delivered at the price initially detailed. LDRA delivers this.”