U.K.-based software testing provider LDRA has secured contracts with five major, still unnamed, avionics suppliers in Russia, a region that is increasing the international presence of its aviation industry with new airframes, technologies and components.
Superjet 100. Photo, courtesy of Sukhoi.
Under the new contracts, LDRA’s tool suite will provide verification of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations that the unnamed suppliers must comply with in order to deploy their products on fixed wing and rotorcraft used abroad. The tool suite has previously been used in Russia to verify onboard computer systems, integrated air data and data display, in addition to other components on aircraft such as the Sukhoi Superjet 100, Tupolev Tu-204 and the Irkut MS21.
The LDRA Testbed, a component of the tool suite, provides the core analysis engines to enforce compliance with coding standards, including the requirements of the DO-178C/ED-12C and DO-254/ED-80 standards.
“The LDRA tool suite has automated our verification process at every stage — for code verification, code coverage, unit testing, secure coding rules and standards adherence — helping us to reduce the number of man hours in our certification efforts by five to 10 times,” said Sergey Zhelepov, onboard software verification group leader for the Russian firm Ulyanovosk Instrument Manufacturing and Design Bureau (UIMDB).
Ian Hennell, operations director at LDRA said the company “prides itself in helping more companies achieve DO-178 certification.”
“These five Russian avionics suppliers join avionics vendors from the United States, France, the United Kingdom and China in choosing the LDRA tool suite to streamline their avionics certification compliance. Such widespread adoption of LDRA exists not only because of our superior tools, but also as a tribute to our extensive support and team of fully credentialed EASA and FAA certification experts who are available to assist with certification services,” Hennell said.