AdaCore Releases QGen 2.1

New version of model-based development and verification toolset brings improved performance, new features

EMBEDDED WORLD 2016, Nuremberg, Germany, February 23, 2016 — AdaCore, a company offering development and verification tools for reliable, safe, and secure software, today released the latest version of its model-based development and verification toolset, QGen.  QGen provides a qualifiable and customizable code generator from Simulink® and Stateflow® models to the safety-oriented programming languages SPARK (a formally analyzable Ada subset) and MISRA C. QGen 2.1 supports essentially all constructs used for modeling safety-critical control systems.  In addition, QGen 2.1 offers a number of other enhancements including optimization of code for switch blocks, the ability to add external code for Lookup tables and Prelookup blocks, support for commented-out / commented-through blocks, and factoring of code for reference models and model libraries.  QGen 2.1 is compatible with MATLAB versions 2008b through 2015b.

As a prototype capability, initial support for model-level debugging is available as a supplement to QGen 2.1.  Using the GNAT Programming Studio (GPS) IDE, developers can debug both “pure” Simulink®/Stateflow® models and applications that combine manually prepared code with the auto-generated code.  At the start of a debug session, side-by-side views of the model and the corresponding generated SPARK/Ada or MISRA C code are displayed.  The developer can set breakpoints on individual blocks, which will automatically set breakpoints at the corresponding points in the generated code.  Other capabilities include stepping execution one block at a time, viewing the values of signal variables, and stepping into or out of model subsystems.  Host (native) debugging, and cross-debugging with any target supported by GDB, will be provided in a subsequent release.

“We designed QGen from the start to support qualified code generation directly from Simulink® and Stateflow® models,” said Tucker Taft, Product Architect for QGen, “and this has struck a responsive chord with our customers in the automotive and aerospace industries and other safety-critical software-intensive domains. QGen 2.1 will help reduce the effort in model-based development and verification, and future releases will continue to broaden the QGen product line. Among the planned enhancements is support for transforming high-level requirements into executable and verifiable assertions at the model and code levels.”

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore supplies software development and verification tools for mission-critical, safety-critical, and security-critical systems. Four flagship products highlight the company’s offerings:

  • The GNAT Pro development environment for Ada, a complete toolset for designing, implementing, and managing applications that demand high reliability and maintainability,
  • The CodePeer advanced static analysis tool, an automatic Ada code reviewer and validator that can detect and eliminate errors both during development and retrospectively on existing software,
  • The SPARK Pro verification environment, a toolset based on formal methods and oriented towards high-assurance systems, and
  • The QGen model-based development tool, a qualifiable and customizable code generator and verifier for Simulink® and Stateflow®` models, intended for safety-critical control systems.

Over the years customers have used AdaCore products to field and maintain a wide range of critical applications in domains such as space systems, commercial avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, rail systems, medical devices, and financial services.  AdaCore has an extensive and growing world-wide customer base; see www.adacore.com/customers/ for further information.

AdaCore products are open source and come with expert on-line support provided by the developers themselves. The company has North American headquarters in New York and European headquarters in Paris. www.adacore.com

Contact
Jamie Ayre
AdaCore
press@adacore.com
http://twitter.com/AdaCoreCompany

Jenna Beaucage, Rainier Communications
jbeaucage@rainierco.com; 508.475.0025, ext. 124