A discussion on the Ada Run-Time Environment in safety critical applications
James V. Chelini · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 1992
The complex systems being built today are increasingly software driven. These systems, such as air traffic control systems, nuclear power plants, avionics software, and even automotive control software, are integral parts of our world. We take these systems for granted everyday and trust them to work safely, without injury to us.The Ada language is being used in a growing number of these systems. This requires a reevaluation of how the language can be effectively used in safety-critical systems. A key element of this evaluation is the Ada Run-Time Environment (RTE) itself. Ada is unique in that it provides its own real-time executive. This paper examines the impact of the Ada RTE on safety critical software and discusses steps to identify and reduce potential risks.