Tool supports FAA-certified Linux development

Safety-critical application development tool and engineering services supplier DDC-I announced that its Eclipse-based OpenArbor mixed-language development environment now supports LynuxWorks’ FAA Certified LynxOS-178 real-time operating system. OpenArbor developers working with any combination of Ada, C, and Embedded C++ (EC++) can now deploy their safety-critical applications on LynxOS-178 target systems certifiable to DO-178B Level A, the FAA’s highest level of safety criticality.

By Control Engineering Staff January 24, 2008

Phoenix, AZ — Safety-critical application development tool and engineering services supplier DDC-I announced that its Eclipse -based OpenArbor mixed-language development environment now supports LynuxWorks’ FAA Certified LynxOS-178 real-time operating system. OpenArbor developers working with any combination of Ada , C , and Embedded C++ (EC++) can now deploy their safety-critical applications on LynxOS-178 target systems certifiable to DO-178B Level A, the FAA’s highest level of safety criticality.
According to DDC-I, LynxOS-178 is the first and only commercial hard real-time operating system certified to DO-178B level A that combines the interoperability benefits of POSIX with support for the ARINC 653 APplication EXecutive (APEX). Available for both Intel Pentium and Freescale PowerPC platforms, LynxOS-178 is also the first and only time- and space-partitioned, FAA-accepted Reusable Software Component (RSC). The operating system enhances safety and security by using Virtual Machine (VM) brick-wall partitions that prevent system events in one RTOS partition from interfering with events in another. Effectively, each partition behaves as if it were running on its own separate computer.
OpenArbor is a mixed-language, object-oriented IDE for developing and deploying real-time, safety-critical applications. The core environment combines optimizing compilers and libraries for C and Embedded C++ with the SCORE mixed-language debugger. The SCORE debugger features an intuitive multi-window GUI, project management support, and automated build/make utilities. SCORE’s symbolic debugger recognizes C/EC++, Ada and Fortran syntax and expressions, and can view objects, expressions, call chains, execution traces, interspersed machine code, machine registers, and program stacks.
OpenArbor provides separate Eclipse plug-ins for Ada development. The Ada compiler plug-in, known as SCORE-Ada, features an optimizing Ada compiler and supports full Ada-level debugging, including constraints, attributes, tasking, exceptions, break-on-exception and break-on-tasking events. The Ada debugger plug-in supports true mixed language debugging in a single session, making it easy to debug applications written in multiple languages. The debugger is non intrusive, can debug at the source or machine level, and can be enabled without changing the generated code.
—Edited by C.G. Masi , senior editor