Bombardier Transportation Selects Wind River Platforms for Safety Critical Certified Display on London Underground

Bombardier selected VxWorks 61508 Platform because of its high reliability and safety critical certification evidence while taking advantage of Linux's graphics and connectivity functionality. The VxWorks 61508 Platform is now bundled in the newly released VxWorks Cert Platform. The HMI410 will be used on the new Bombardier-built S-Stock trains that will run on London Underground’s subsurface lines including District, Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City.

The HMI410 design consists of a carrier board with a Freescale MPC870 processor running VxWorks 61508 Platform. In addition, a Kontron Atom mezzanine module is connected to the carrier board to accommodate an Intel® Atom™ processor running Wind River Linux. The software running on the Freescale controller must meet Safety Integrity Level 2, or SIL 2, according to the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization EN 50128 (CENELEC EN 50128) safety standard. Wind River VxWorks 61508 Platform, with its commercial off-the-shelf, or COTS, IEC 61508 certification evidence, provides the run-time platform for the safety critical portion of the application. Coupled with Intel Atom processor—supported Wind River Linux for the non-safety-critical applications, it enables Bombardier to utilize cost-effective COTS hardware while meeting the stringent software development targets set by customers and railway certification agencies.

Wind River also provided certified board support packages and support for the certification process to accelerate development and significantly reduce certification costs for Bombardier. This approach enables predictability in future projects through reuse of the same certification processes and artifacts. Wind River supports both CENELEC EN 50128 and IEC 61508 safety standards for applications and devices in the industrial markets including safety controllers for oil refineries, nuclear power plants and railway signaling systems.

The rail industry is seeking innovative new solutions to improve services for their customers while driving down cost and reducing time-to-market, said Erik Gyllenswärd, project manager at Bombardier. Wind River's VxWorks platform along with their validated, traceable, commercial-grade Linux distribution allowed us to speed up the development of our standards-based solution and meet our market delivery window.

VxWorks 61508 Platform allows customers to reduce development risk for safety certified systems by leveraging the portability of existing VxWorks components, development tools and partner ecosystem while maintaining confidence in meeting the requirements for lower cost, faster time-to-market, higher quality and increased performance. The platform is based on commercial-grade VxWorks and is specialized for stringent IEC 61508 certification requirements for energy, industrial control, medical, process automation and transportation market segments.

Industry-leading device manufacturers within the rail industry require a predictable, simplified path to certification, said Jens Wiegand, vice president of industry solutions at Wind River. Emerging safety critical requirements and increased system complexity mean innovators such as Bombardier must rely on a market-leading solution to minimize the risk of delays and budget overruns due to certification issues. The combination of VxWorks and our commercial-grade Wind River Linux enables manufacturers to achieve these increasingly stringent objectives and benefit from the advantages of both VxWorks and Linux in one solution while meeting all certification requirements.