LDRA Certification Services Guides Automotive Industry through New Regulations

The LCS team is led by Todd R. White, a systems, software and electronic equipment certification expert, supported by Marty Gasiorowski, a systems, safety and software certification expert, and Dr. Holly Hildreth, a safety and risk analysis expert in compliance across a wide range of US and international standards, including ISO 26262. Their collective expertise in all phases of software and system development and the team’s pending TÜV® ISO 26262 certification assures applicants that ISO 26262 certification will be interpreted and applied correctly to their specific processes.

A tremendous synergy is achieved by the cross training and competency of these industry-leading certification experts using the LDRA tool suite. Because development and verification tools are now essential elements of any product lifecycle compliant with ISO 26262, the LCS team can ensure the successful use and qualification of these tools and the consequential accomplishment of ISO 26262 objectives.

The new ISO 26262 offers extensive guidance for model-based development using modeling tools such as MathWork’s Simulink. With out-of-the-box integration between this industry-leading modeling tool and the LDRA tool suite, ISO 26262 applicants gain immediate model and target-execution coverage that is easily facilitated with shared model and target testing. The assured consistency of the same tool performing code coverage on the host and target systems reduces the costs and risks associated with the automotive industry’s best practice of back-to-back testing.

The ISO 26262 standard establishes four automotive safety integrity levels (ASILs) for the electric, electronic and programmable electronic (E/E/PE) subsystems and mandates design practices, compliance to programming standards like MISRA C and bidirectional traceability to ensure safety.

“Today’s cars with all their safety-critical electronics are fast becoming as sophisticated as the rockets and space shuttles we grew up with,” said Todd R. White. “Bringing a decade’s worth of existing code into compliance with ISO 26262 is a huge task, and a team of experts both minimizes the effort required and avoids interference with new product development.”

LCS provides comprehensive support to automotive companies across the entire development and production lifecycle. The LCS team can advise on new code development processes as well as the gap analysis required to establish a program for bringing millions of lines of legacy code into compliance. Training and continuous involvement through audits and more general LCS design and verification support ensure client success.

“Seventy percent of all coding errors arise from simple programming mistakes,” noted Ian Hennell, LDRA Operations Director. “The good news is that LDRA’s sophisticated analysis tools can easily catch these issues. The other 30%, as well as the establishment of development processes like bidirectional traceability, are where LCS drives success.”

The LDRA tool suite automates all stages of the development process to achieve compliance readiness. From requirements definition and traceability to MC/DC code coverage analysis, unit testing and validation, the tools deliver a broad range of qualifiable verification capabilities that support ISO 26262 certification objectives at all ASIL levels. The LDRA tool suite manages and tracks all artifacts to achieve complete bidirectional traceability through all aspects of development, down to object code and on-target testing. An ISO 26262-specific template streamlines automotive regulatory processes, outlining necessary certification methodology and requirements. Modules within the LDRA tool suite manage and graphically depict the complex relationships between objectives, requirements, code and tests, automatically documenting all aspects of analysis, code correction, and validation.

Additional LCS support for ISO 26262 certification is offered by two LDRA Tool Qualification Support Packages (TQSP), which are offered as a single or combined TQSP. The Code Coverage TQSP includes the LDRA tool suite with an MC/DC Code Coverage validation test suite. The Static Analysis TQSP includes the LDRA tool suite with a MISRA C coding rules validation test suite. The combined offering ensures automotive vendors have all that they need to achieve ISO 26262 certification readiness.

The full capabilities of the LDRA ISO 26262 certifiable support package will be demonstrated at Embedded World in Nürnberg, Germany from February 28 to March 1 in Hall 4-410. Visit the stand to see how a software project can achieve certifiable readiness through requirements traceability from requirements creation through development and validation for the certification standard you need.