PikeOS is a real-time operating system
based on a separation kernel designed for
the highest levels of Safety & Security. The
PikeOS technology is certifiable by various
certification standards including DO-178C, IEC 61508,
ECSS, EN 50128 / EN 50657, and ISO 26262.
It combines a modular, highly flexible and future-proof
architecture with a variety of certification standards.
With this fully European solution customers benefit
in terms of reduction of cost, risk and full system
certification lead times. We offer optional long-term
support for all of our OS products.

Safety

The software industry is probably unique in its custom to release products to the market even when they are likely to have residual bugs. For consumer goods users have come to accept that complex software programs apparently cannot be made bug-free, and have adjusted to the occasional system failure as a consequence of fast innovation. This, however, is entirely different in the area of Safety-critical software systems, and for good reason: A failure of such a system could harm or even kill humans. Therefore, it must be shown to be reliable before it can be allowed to control, e.g. an air plane, a chemical plant, a vehicle, and many more.

DO-178C Certification Standard

DO-178C is a certification standard for software used in airborne systems. It concentrates on objectives for software life-cycle processes to assure the development of safe and reliable software for airborne environments. DO-178C determines five Safety levels by examining the effects of a failure condition in the system.

Originally, DO-178C is the title of a document released by RTCA, Inc. describing “Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification”. The standard has been accepted by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as certification standard and guideline to determine software Safety. The European Organization for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE) adopted DO-178C as ED-12C.

The PikeOS certification approach is modular and hardware independent to the upmost extend. Certifications can be easily extended to different hardware platforms with additional certifiable artefacts, such as a certifiable IP stack, ARINC 653 API, POSIX, Math Library or a filesystem. The tool chain is qualified and the safety methods and considerations are adapted according to the respected vertical market. PikeOS is certifiable according to the latest industry certification standards.

We engage in a close manner with major homologation institutes. The applied methodology is accepted by EASA and FAA. The CertKit supports the certification process of the entire system, thus reduces time-to-market. PikeOS comes with requirement documents (all hierarchy levels) that are structured by objective IDs (requirements, test cases, …) and can be embedded in customers’ system or aircraft documentation for traceability.

ARINC A653 (APEX) is the de-facto standard for space and time partitioning in Safety-critical Avionics real-time operating systems (RTOS) and is also supported by PikeOS Certification Evidences.

The PikeOS Avionics CertKit is a bundle of evidences for a specific PikeOS version and hardware. It contains:

Software Accomplishment Summary for PikeOS
Software Accomplishment Summary custom BSP (if any)
Safety Manual for PikeOS
Safety Manual for selected Architecture
Tool Qualification Report
Tool Operational Requirements of customer-related tools
Interface Specifications
User Manual

Each CertKit comes with a frequently updated Safety bulletin, mentioning known Safety alerts and improvements. Customers can switch to long term maintenance for a selected certifiable product and also purchase a source code option for higher DAL levels.