Thales has developed and verified a qualified autocode generator for critical airborne software. To do it, the company used AdaCore’s GNAT Pro Ada environment.
The development process for the autocode generator has been performed according to EASA DO-330 / ED-215 Tool Qualification Considerations standard, AdaCore said. The tool has been qualified for the avionics project at tool qualification level TQL‑2.
Thales implemented the autocode generator in Ada; the tool takes an extensible markup language (XML) file and produces source code for an embedded avionics system that will be assessed against the Level B objectives in DO-178C / ED-12C, AdaCore said. The company said several of its other tools have also been used for the avionics software — not just developing and verifying autocode generators. Those products include the GNAT Programming Studio Integrated Development Environment, the GNATcheck coding standard verifier and the GNATcoverage structural coverage analyzer.
AdaCore said that, according to the Thales engineer in charge of the autocode generator, using an automated coding standard verifier and a qualified structural code coverage analyzer greatly helped the project complete the tool verification process.