Defence

AdaCore's GNAT Pro selected for Airbus Helicopters' tactical UAS

Posted 8 September 2020

Software development and verification tools provider, AdaCore, announced today that Airbus Helicopters (France) has selected the GNAT Pro tool suite and the Ada programming language to develop new software components for the VSR700 prototype project, which is Airbus Helicopters’ tactical unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed to meet army and navy requirements worldwide.

Image courtesy AdaCore

Airbus Helicopters selected AdaCore’s GNAT Pro Ada for PowerPC VxWorks 6.x/Cert based on several criteria, including ease of integration into the existing development infrastructure, the ability to develop monitoring algorithms, and the capacity to help certify the software up to DO-178C Design Assurance Level B.

“We selected AdaCore and the Ada language because we believe that this technology and related tools will increase the maintainability and quality of our software and make it easier to provide some evidence for certain software certification objectives,” said Matthieu Vatinet, Head of Embedded Software Products, Airbus Helicopters. “The quality of AdaCore’s support was an important advantage and another anticipated benefit was the ease of developing mature code.”

“Knowing that the Airbus Helicopters team needed to develop highly reliable and safe code for their VSR700 prototype project, we were extremely pleased that they selected Ada and AdaCore,” said Jamie Ayre, Commercial Director at AdaCore. “The GNAT Pro Ada tool suite offers exceptional verification abilities that will help Airbus to detect problems early in their development process when they are easiest and least costly to correct. And our support services will address any questions or issues that may arise.”