AdaCore + FACE®
The FACE® approach is a US government-industry initiative for reducing defense system life cycle costs through portable and reusable software components. It consists of a technical approach — a software architecture based on well-defined standard interfaces — and a business strategy for encouraging the development and deployment of FACE conformant products.
AdaCore is committed to supporting FACE requirements, and both the Ada language and the company’s product offerings directly support the initiative’s objectives. Ada is unique in its support for portable, reliable and efficient code. The language was designed for programming critical real-time embedded systems and has a long and successful track record in military / aerospace projects and in other high-assurance domains where safety and/or security are required. It is the ideal language choice for developing software that needs to be FACE conformant.
Our Contributions to the FACE Consortium
AdaCore is a Principal Member of The Open Group’s FACE Consortium and has been actively participating in the FACE effort since 2012. The company’s contributions include:
- Serving on and making major contributions to the Conformance Verification and Operating Systems Subcommittees of the Technical Working Group, to ensure that the Ada support in the FACE Technical Standard meets customer requirements
- Leading a FACE Consortium team to develop a practical approach to verifying Ada software for FACE conformanceEnsuring effective Ada 2012 support in the FACE Technical Standard so that FACE component developers can take advantage of contract-based programming and other modern features that Ada 2012 offers
- Reviewing the various versions of the FACE Technical Standard and assisting in the definition of the IDL-to-Ada mapping
- Sponsoring FACE meetings and participating in FACE Technical Interchange Meetings by presenting papers, conducting demos, and exhibiting our FACE related products
AdaCore Solutions for FACE Portability and Certification
AdaCore’s product offerings contribute to the FACE approach in several ways:
AdaCore’s GNAT Pro for Ada development environment supports a wide range of native and cross platforms and is supplemented by a variety of static and dynamic analysis tools. GNAT Pro is especially suited to projects requiring long-term maintenance and/or safety certification based on a specific version of the technology.
Get GNAT Pro for AdaGNAT Pro cross compilers for several target platforms include runtime libraries supporting the Ada Safety Extended and Safety Base & Security profiles / capability sets. These libraries are available for RTOSes that have undergone or are planned for FACE conformance, in particular Wind River’s VxWorks 653 and Lynx Software Technologies’ LynxOS-178. The libraries help FACE component developers meet the portability goal underlying the FACE initiative while providing the analyzability, predictability and efficiency required in high-assurance real-time avionics systems.
The GNATcheck coding standard enforcement tool, which is part of the GNAT Static Analysis Suite (GNAT SAS), can check conformance with the restrictions defined by each of the Ada capability sets. This helps FACE software suppliers save time and effort by finding violations early in the development process.
Get GNAT Static Analysis SuiteThe GNAT Static Analysis Suite includes an advanced tool for detecting vulnerabilities and other errors in Ada code, and the SPARK Pro formal methods-based toolsuite can verify critical program properties with mathematics-based rigor. AdaCore’s GNAT Dynamic Analysis Suite (GNAT DAS) is a useful complement to GNAT SAS, supplying theGNATcoverage tool for reporting source or object code coverage and GNAT Fuzz for automating fuzz-based testing that can help detect security vulnerabilities.
Our OfferingsDO-178B/C certification material is available for several run-time libraries, and qualification material is available for a number of GNAT Pro tools. These artifacts can help streamline the certification effort for FACE software that is part of an avionics system subject to DO-178B/C.
Ada Support for FACE
The bottom line: when portable software at the highest levels of assurance is required, AdaCore offers the trusted technology and support that FACE component developers can rely on.
The Ada language – both Ada 95 and Ada 2012 – are well supported by the FACE Technical Standard, and the FACE conformance verification procedures for Ada that were approved by the FACE Consortium in 2024 offer a practical approach to demonstrating how Ada code meets the FACE requirements. Through Ada and AdaCore’s GNAT Pro development environments, FACE software developers can reap dual benefits: reducing the software verification effort for applications demanding the highest levels of assurance while achieving the portability goals that the FACE approach is designed for.
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