The Benefits of COTS Software

The core business of embedded-systems manufacturers is to create innovative, market-leading products by developing unique application software that runs on certifiable embedded platforms. One way in which manufacturers can allow their staff to focus on their core business while producing safety-critical systems is to incorporate certifiable, Commercial, Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products into their designs. Using certifiable COTS products outsources areas of expertise to vendors that support multiple manufacturers, bringing domain-specific expertise to the problem at hand. This helps reduce cost by using software whose core development and certification cost can be amortized across multiple customers, and it reduces risk by using products available today rather than undertaking new hardware or software development and certification tasks.

For graphical displays in aircraft, OpenGL® is the standard graphics API of choice. OpenGL is a device-independent Application Programming Interface (API) that allows avionics software to draw both 2D vectors and 3D polygons with lighting, shading, and texture mapping. OpenGL is a broad standard, supporting the needs of devices ranging from personal computers and video games to medical imaging systems and avionics. In the case of safety-critical systems, the OpenGL SC subset has been defined to provide the power of OpenGL to the application at hand while simplifying the range of functionality to a core set for small memory-footprint devices. Simpler software naturally lowers the certification risk and cost because the resulting OpenGL driver code is smaller and less complex.

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For a more detailed discussion of the role of COTS software in certifiable embedded systems, please refer to the following articles:

Aviation-Quality COTS Software: Reality or Folly
  Seaweed Systems technical brief.

COTS OpenGL Software Eases Certifiable Avionics Code
  Article in COTS Journal, September 2001.

Seaweed Systems and Safety-Critical Avionics Graphics Software  Seaweed Systems executive brief, April 2006