Adoption of Ada and GNAT technology brings safety, reliability and security to SCoPE
WINTER SPRINGS, FL, February 17, 2010 – Advanced Technologies, developer of real-time safety critical embedded systems, today announced its selection of the Ada language and GNAT Ada technology to implement the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Signal Control Program Environment (SCoPE). This Open Source system will control traffic instruments, such as lights and call buttons, while interfacing with various sensors and detectors at intersections. It will also implement new traffic flow and preemption algorithms. The GNAT environment was previously utilized for the SCoPE proof-of-concept research prototype, and is now being used for final product development.
“The U.S. Department of Transportation realized the need for new intersection control programs to be developed in the same language as is used in other safety-critical applications, such as flight control and missile systems,” said ATI President Mark Gardinier. “With its strong track record for safety, reliability and security, and with features such as protected types to support well-engineered concurrent programming, Ada is an excellent language for transportation systems in general and SCoPE in particular.”
ATI used the Ada language, the GNAT Ada development environment for GNU Linux, and the GNAT Programming Studio GPS) Integrated Development Environment to build the prototype system. ATI utilized AdaCore’s GTKAda toolkit along with the GLADE 2.0 GUI Builder to implement the graphical user interface (GUI) and display for the prototype. GLADE allowed ATI engineers to rapidly create a traffic intersection model using graphics downloaded from the internet along with the GIMP graphics tool. GTKAda was directly generated from GLADE. By using GTKAda, ATI only had to recompile and relink the source code to run the GUI on either Linux or Windows.
For its new core logic, SCoPE will incorporate an Open Source signal control program developed at the University of California. ATI is improving on this program and re-writing it in Ada 95. SCoPE is being designed so that the Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance System (CICAS), and Adaptive Control Systems (ACS) Lite can be easily integrated into, and operate with, National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Signal Transition Logic. ATI is also incorporating additional NCHRP 3-66 algorithms selected by the Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative and other members of the CICAS and ACS consortium.
The initial software will execute under GNU Linux and be integration tested on a PowerPC-based target platform. The final software will run on the newly developed Advanced Traffic Controller architecture. Software testing during the development stage will be done primarily using the Open Source Texas Model traffic simulator. Formal validation will then be performed at multiple University Transportation Center (UTC) locations.
The software developed by ATI will be dual redundant. All requirements, including design, code, and unit tests, will be kept under configuration control. All software design, implementation, testing, configuration management and documentation for this project was developed using Open Source tools.
About Advanced Technologies, Inc.
Advanced Technologies Incorporated (ATI), founded in 1986, is a long-time supplier of aerospace research and development software. ATI engineers have designed and implemented a range of software, including a missile guidance system, redundancy software for a flight control system, the middleware of a satellite communications system, the run-time executive of a weapons tracking system, and black box interface software for a missile guidance system.
ATI is based in Winter Springs, Florida. http://www.advancedtechcorp.com
Press Contact
Mark Gardinier, President
Advanced Technologies, Inc.
mark@advancedtechcorp.com
407-588-7199
