Certifying software is a complex process that includes to review software design, coding, validation and verification. Certification costs are very much related to the number of lines of code and the modularity of the software. Certification of monolithic software is complex and expensive. More promising is the use of a modular platform. That's where we started our considerations when we designed PikeOS Safe & Secure Virtualization as an operating system to be used in safety- and security-critical environments. As the most flexible and smallest platform we chose a micro kernel approach for PikeOS. Including additional system software it comprises less than 10K lines of code in total. The micro kernel is equipped with a modular Architecture and Platform Support Packages (ASP and PSP). The system software allows to build multiple partitions for divers OSs, APIs, and RTE. As a result PikeOS has become a small and modular platform - perfect for certification.

The concept of Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) was invented in the early '90s to overcome the vast number of single electronic devices in the avionics. PikeOS Safe and Secure Virtualization was introduced in 2005 with a concept of integration of multiple software APIs on a single hardware platform. Today, both concepts build the foundation for a revolutionary new approach in the avionics.