SYSGO and Kontron: SAFe-VX

Turnkey-Ready Development Platform

Partitioning critical and non-critical application code in independent time and memory spaces.

SYSGO and Kontron present SAFe-VX, a turnkey-ready developing suite, providing fully representative hardware and a complete toolchain for software development, which is integrated into the Eclipse-based IDE CODEO. The integrated development environment provides all the components that software engineers need to develop embedded applications and includes comprehensive tools to realize embedded projects in a time-saving and cost-efficient way.

SAFe-VX for embedded Railway Solutions

SYSGO's head of Technical Sales, Thierry Maudire, explains the SAFe-VX for embedded Railway solutions.

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SAFe-VX Product Overview (PDF)

Modular Hardware with safe & secure Operating System
including Safety Library

Targeted to Railway applications for signalling, way-side handling and rolling stock, SAFe-VX consists of a modular hardware, operating system and Safety library. It implements a 1oo2D Safety architecture with two channels and a voter. In order to achieve a Safety level of SIL 4, two boards can be run in tandem. The platform is intended to be used within development and simulation environments as well as in real-life scenarios, supporting the highest Safety levels (SIL 4).

Certification kits for hardware and software are available.

SAFe-VX Platform

Software Architecture

PikeOS is the backbone of the platform, as it naturally fulfils the substantialrequirements of determinism and real-time, Security, Safety and virtualization. As a Type 1 hypervisor, it directly runs on the embedded hardware and makes the overall system as performant as possible. Another performance boost comes through the multi-core support, which has proven its maturity in recent Railway projects. PikeOS is the first operating system that has been certified according to SIL 4 in a multi-core project.

The virtualization environment of PikeOS allows to separate and isolate application from each other by means of strict static time- and resource partitioning. This offers the opportunity to run mixed-criticality configurations, such as black-channel communication where a low-critical Linux partition provides a complex (TCP/IP) network stack. At the same time the high-critical application (that provides the functional safety) runs in a separate partition and cannot be influenced by the Linux partition.

Hardware Architecture

The hardware comes from Kontron and bases on the VPX (Vital) standard. Computing modules for network and digital I/O can be plugged-in based on project needs. The reference implementation consists of three x86 computing boards and one network switch hosted in a rack with 4U height. The network connections are routed on the rack’s backplane. SAFe-VX does not present any single point of failure.

Safety Library

The Safety library makes use of the three computing boards by employing two redundant channel and one voter. Together with comprehensive continuous built-in tests / monitoring, a 1oo2D Safety architecture is employed. For projects with a demand to Safety level SIL 4, two parallel computing platforms are switched together.

Turnkey-ready Development Platform

The package SAFe-VX comes as a turnkey-ready developing suite, providing fully representative hardware and a complete toolchain for software development, which is integrated into the Eclipse-based IDE CODEO. The integrated development environment provides all the components that software engineers need to develop embedded applications and includes comprehensive little helpers to finish embedded projects in a time-saving and cost-efficient way.

More about CODEO

Benefits

Jointly with our hardware partner Kontron we offer:

Flexible & Modular VPX-based architecture, state-of-the-art with modern processors

A development platform for Safety-critical applications using PikeOS as RTOS & Hypervisor

Ideal to accommodate Safety and non-Safety tasks, without compromising segregation and partitioning

Fast transition from development to deployment, reducing time-to-market and total cost of ownership

Wayside or rolling stock applications: Large operating T Range, shock & vibrations, EMC/ EMI environments

Long term support for program operations up to 30 years

About Kontron

The company was established in 1991 and looks back on a history of impressive growth. In 1993 they developed their first fully integrated embedded computer product, and they have been Germany's leading supplier of embedded computer technology since 1995. The move into the foreign markets was funded by a financial investor. In 1997, Kontron also became the No 1 in Europe. Today, they are world market leader and their technologies have repeatedly set new standards; the PISA concept, the ETX and the DIMM PC format are globally recognized ECT (Embedded Computer Technology) standards today.