Rockwell Collins and CERTON Successfully Achieve TSO Approval for Weather Radar Software
Melbourne, FL (PRWEB) April 25, 2016 -- The RTA-4218 is installed in the nose cone of an aircraft and delivers comprehensive weather analysis and threat detection for a more accurate depiction of potential weather and turbulence hazards. CERTON was responsible for all aspects of the Design Assurance Level (DAL) C V&V activities on this product. The custom test environments were collaboratively developed for automation of “white box” and “black box” testing of six different embedded processors in conjunction with Rockwell Collins. This automation along with standardized test case and procedure templates, provided by CERTON, allowed optimal resource management and regression change impact analyses. The end result was an unprecedented successful TSO approval of the Weather Radar software ahead of the hardware and systems approvals.
CERTON also used CertSAFE, http://www.CertSAFE.com, to convert text based requirements into models that could be simulated in concert with the visual representations of the requirements. This allowed immediate understanding of the intended functionality at a high level along with the design level detail and dependencies to identify errors and ambiguities early in the V&V life cycle.
Timothy Stockton, President and CEO of CERTON stated, “Identifying errors and resolving ambiguities in the requirements up front to ensure they are correct and verifiable prior to testing is the key to streamlining safety-critical product development. This is exactly what CertSAFE has been created to do with an unparalleled simulation capability and we’ve been using it for the last 8 years on safety-critical embedded systems internally. It’s now available externally to be utilized directly by our customers, as Rockwell Collins has learned on the RTA-4218 program. We also provide a free CertSAFE reader version to aid the independent review process at no cost.”
CertSAFE allowed the V&V team to collaborate with Rockwell Collins Systems and Software Engineers on RTA-4218 to validate the correct intended behavior before attempting to test in the lab. Obscure differences between the requirements and source code were immediately identified and resolved without consuming any lab resource or engineering time. Once the requirements and functionality are agreed to be complete and correct, the simulation test vectors were automatically exported into open file formats and run directly in the automated lab test environments. Ultimately, this resulted in the fastest path to a successful TSO of the RTA-4218 Weather Radar software and inevitably less time that passengers will have to buckle their seat belt and lift up the tray tables for turbulence and bad weather.
Over the last decade, CERTON has established an identity of unparalleled safety critical certification solutions in the aerospace, medical device, and transportation industries. CERTON has internally developed tools and exclusive technology designed to streamline approvals of safety-critical systems, software, and complex hardware. These competitive advantages allow CERTON to minimize the time-to-market of customer products while providing a Firm Fixed Cost to its customers. CERTON provides expertise in all phases of systems, software, and complex hardware product design life cycles to support rapid approval of safety-critical customer products.
Contact CERTON today at sales(at)certon(dot)com or visit http://www.CERTON.com to see how CERTON can reduce the overall cost of your safety critical software or hardware approval.
Timothy Stockton, CERTON, http://www.CERTON.com, +1 (321) 674-2155 Ext: 407, [email protected]
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