High-integrity software tooling specialist AdaCore, has announced the introduction of the Ada and SPARK programming languages into the automotive market. Together with partner Nvidia, AdaCore says it is set to publish an off-the-shelf reference process, allowing others to follow the lead.
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Nvidia developed Drive OS, the reference operating system and associated software stack designed specifically for developing and deploying autonomous vehicle applications on DRIVE AGX-based hardware.
This system includes software components that comply with the ‘highest levels of integrity of the automotive certification standard ISO-26262’. To achieve that effort, Nvidia selected these languages to develop some of the most critical components of its software stack. This required establishing a development process that takes advantage of formal methods and other safety characteristics of Ada and SPARK, thus fully leveraging their capabilities, the companies say.
ISO 26262 is a standard for functional safety in the automotive industry, focusing on electrical and electronic (E/E) systems in road vehicles. At the heart of the standard are Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs), which classify potential hazards from A (lowest) to D (highest) based on severity, exposure, and controllability. The higher the ASIL, the more rigorous the required development and verification processes.
AdaCore and Nvidia have decided to publish this reference process freely as an open-source and evolving document, allowing the industry at large to adopt Ada and SPARK.
“As the added value of the automotive industry turns more and more from mechanical to software features, achieving software safety at the highest levels becomes one of the most critical challenges of modern car development,” says Quentin Ochem, Chief Product and Revenue Officer at AdaCore. “Nvidia demonstrates truly remarkable technical leadership in the domain by introducing Ada and SPARK into its development process and allowing the rest of the community to follow its path.”
The ISO-26262 reference process is available on https://nvidia.github.io/spark-process/ and can be used or customized freely by anyone interested in adopting these languages.
