HODYS-avionics SAS is a leading french company devoted for collision warning / avoidance radars for aircrafts (mainly Helicopters), automotive and ships.

In our effort to find a so called five nine OS to deal with more & more complex avionics systems (all so telecoms & some industrials) it became obvious that none existing OS could be used for DO178 / ED12 class E to A embedded systems.

In spring '01 we take decision to rewrite Linux under ADA to provide an OS compliant with DO178 / ED12 class E to A. Obviously our so called rtADAlinux does not support any X86 chip but rather RISC chips like MIPS & ARM. Actually our rtADAlinux can be purchassed for DO178 / ED12 as upgradable kits for compliant systems building for class E to A with prices ranging from 2500 us$ for single user Class E design kit (including all manuals and softwares to specifiy, develop and simulate the final system) up to 150 500 us$ for for single user Class A multi user licenses are also avaiable on a 25% per workstation basis for 2 to 5 users and 10% for each supplemental workstation.

Some features of our OS are detailed in depth hereafter:

• Real Time:
  Real time processes involve very short and predictable time to reacts to an event. Our rtADAlinux is redesigned to answer to events in a short and known (always the same, no matter other events) delay.
• DO178 / ED12 compliance:
  Our design kits are modular and so they may adapt to customers wishes. So is it possible to purchasse A class E kit upgrade it till class A, either directly or step by step.
• Procs support:
  Only RISC processors are presently supported, because only these procs have an "always predictable" behavour. Our kits are multi procs and support all the NEC - IDT RISC family and derivatives as well as ARM family and derivatives. Other procs support are under development. It is obvious that upgrades for new procs coming to maket are provided for our customers at no extra cost.
• Peripheral support:
  A lot of peripheral chips are supported in form of modules, as "classical" linux do, & drivers for these chips are provided in source code, but we include in all our design kits a DDK (Device Driver Kit) writen in ADA to make driver design very easy and compliant with DO178 /ED12.
• Some behavour differences between rtADAlinux and others: By design rtADAlinux is able to work in memory only mode, that is no disks, in that case rom memories must incorporate check bits to allow the OS to self repair in case of disturbance due to either internal hardware faults or external general faults conditions. Also it is not used any "bios" to boot the system, but rather our OS take the target system under control since hard or soft reset toggles the processor. Another diff is that rtADAlinux is multi proc by natureand can work either in cluster mode (that is : 1 OS for 1 proc) or concurrently in multi single mode (that is : 1 OS for 1 to n procs simultaneous). rtADAlinux can easily be configured in a hierarchical architecture to enable OS & system cross control features. To be sure to be DO178 / ED12 compliant, rtADAlinux is completely "self contained" and provide all necessary software pieces to build all the functions the system designer may want to put in.
• What about certification?
  Certification is a complex process. Of course,by itself our OS can't by certified but if system hardware is compliant with the relevant design rules, we claim that the whole system can be certified following the class our OS is purchassed for.

For more information, contact
HODYS-avionics SAS
4, rue de la Megisserie
12100 Millau
France
Tel: +33 565 581 498
Fax: +33 565 609 183
contact: Edgar HODYS CEO
e-mail : ehodys@hodys-avionics.com. .