Leveraging a build import within the LDRA tool suite, LDRA integrates into these complex projects, enabling embedded developers using Yocto to jump through layers of abstraction in diverse and complex build systems and quickly extract the information they need for static and dynamic analysis, as well as unit test.
Yocto’s aim to unify and improve software practices in open source embedded systems is strongly complemented by LDRA’s goal to facilitate modular design through the re-use of these components in safety critical systems. Automotive companies already using LDRA’s build to test entertainment systems, airbags and brakes have increased the safety and security of these Yocto-integrated systems as they bridge into autonomous vehicles.
“As embedded projects have evolved to complex computer systems, build technology brings the various modules together, and requirements around safety, security and quality become increasingly complex to verify,” said Ian Hennell, Operations Director, LDRA. “No one person can know exactly how each module is built, nor how the code interacts between the modules. Because LDRA’s build import shows how code is built, it uncovers the exact information needed for standards compliance and application certification.”
Native for Linux, Windows and MacOS, LDRA’s new build import is extensible and API ready, making it easy to customise. Used in combination with the LDRA tool suite, embedded developers can move directly into static analysis and unit testing of their application. Historically, applications such as braking systems, were embedded into a specific microcontroller, and developed and tested independently from the rest of the system.
Automotive systems, however, are following the trend of avionics’ IMA (integrated modular avionics) architecture, and the embedding a controller is now a software module built into a larger system. When it comes to functional safety testing in this environment, the ability to decompose the system and understand each module is critical, particularly since tools like Yocto - while helping structurally organise a system - create a lack of transparency that increases complexity. With the build import, the testing team always has a build expert on staff to offer the answers required to build a safety case.
To properly certify complex systems to rail’s IEC TC 9, automotive’s ISO 26262, and aerospace’s DO-178C, where rigorous static and dynamic analysis and unit testing are mandated, embedded developers need to be able for fully analyze how the individual modules and systems are built and interact. LDRA’s build import integrated with Yocto shows the power and flexibility afforded by the build import methodology.
The LDRA tool suite helps developers build quality into their software development lifecycle. It is a suite of software standards compliance, testing, and verification tools that reflect industry best practices to help ease the development of high-quality safety- and security-critical products. Its open and extensible platform is unique in its integration of software lifecycle traceability, static and dynamic analysis, unit test, and system-level testing on virtually any host or target platform.
