Esterel Technologies - EN 50128 Certified Rail Software Solutions

Esterel Technologies, worldwide leader of model-based design and verification tools for critical embedded systems, provides Esterel SCADE™. This unique solution reduces rail transportation control software development costs while achieving the highest levels of safety, including EN 50128 at SIL 3/4.

Esterel Technologies is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company.

Model-based design and verification tools

Aircraft manufacturers and sub-contractors have been using Esterel SCADE technology for more than 15 years, and ground transportation constructors are now adopting this technology. SCADE generated production code for the Airbus A380 and A340-600, the Boeing 787, Eurocopter helicopters, the Falcon 7X business jet, the Peugeot 407 car, Hong-Kong subway, more than 20 power plants and many more.

In the rail domain, Esterel SCADE is already used in particular by:

• Alstom Transportation
• Ansaldo Signal
• AREVA TA
• BJTU (China)
• Deuta Werke
• NRIET
• RATP
• Siemens Rail Transportation
• SNCF
• Systerel
• Thales Rail Signalling Systems
• Union Switch
• NIIAS

Ansaldo Signal relies on Esterel SCADE for large production projects to develop complex systems such as interlocking and train control. Esterel SCADE is used to specify the base signalling functions and to model the environment in compliance with the project principle, rules and the most stringent certification constraints. Ansaldo have said "SCADE is particularly relevant for our activities due to its strict modularity; a function once designed will always behave the same regardless of the context of usage."

Esterel SCADE development platform can benefit to applications with significant rail transportation safety implications such as on-board software, automatic train operations, power management, interlocking and train control systems, signalling, ground stations and other train and operations control applications.

Open model-based design environment for safety-critical embedded software

Today, most railway transportation systems are automated and software controlled. New methods and tools are becoming necessary in this increasingly aggressive market where pressure on cost is ever-increasing.

Esterel SCADE provides a complete set of tools for verification and validation, and automatically generates a certified set of code ready to be integrated in the system. This enables to avoid expensive and tedious tests and reviews of the generated code, which otherwise often consumes more than 50% of the development budgets.

Esterel SCADE is the model-based development environment dedicated to safety-critical embedded software:

• EN 50128 certified at SIL 3/4 by TÜV SÜD for rail transportation
• IEC 61508 certified at SIL 3 by TÜV SÜD for heavy equipment and energy
• DO-178B qualified up to level A for aerospace

Benefits of Esterel SCADE in rail and transportation

Esterel SCADE enables to develop software, including variants, in a well-defined, efficient, reproducible and cost-effective manner.

Esterel SCADE reduces development and verification costs while achieving safety and integrity:

• Coding, review and testing costs reduced by 70%-90%
• Manual quality activities cost cut down by 70%-90%
• Software update cycle time shortened by 65%-75%

Unique production code generator certified according to EN 50128 and IEC 61508 standards

Esterel SCADE-generated code:

• Behaves deterministically ('what you specify is what you embed'), eliminating the need for intensive and repeated unit testing
• Supports all commercial and proprietary real-time operating systems (RTOS) and schedulers