AdaCore has announced that Thales has chosen GNAT Pro technology and several safety-qualified tools to develop critical systems for the Airbus A350 XWB (Xtra Wide-Body) family. Thales will use the GNAT Pro High-Integrity Edition for DO-178B and the Ada 2005 language to build ADIRU (air data inertial reference unit) for the airbus. ADIRU provides precise in-flight positioning information. The system has to be certified to high safety levels. The system will meet Level A of the DO-178B standard and use ARINC 653 multi partition operating system MACS2.
The project will enhance the advancement in safety-critical development by the application of Agile programming techniques and safe use of OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) features. Thales will be using Ada 2005 version of Ada language. Ada language has introduced additional support for real-time systems, safety-critical systems and safe/reliable OOP. The combination of GNAT Pro and Ada 2005 provides the technology that is needed to develop ADIRU software for the airbus. AdaCore has provided a qualified code standard checker and a coverage tool for this project. These tools are important for the development process of ADIRU and the generation of safety evidence. The company's coverage solution provides MC/DC coverage information on uninstrumented source code, through the use of a PowerPC simulator.
The airbus meets the market demand for a series of efficient medium-capacity long-range wide-body aircraft. With a range of 8,300nm to 15,400km the airbus is available in three basic passenger versions namely, the A350-800, the A350-900 and the A350-1000.
