Expertise to Support Any Safety-Critical DO-254 Hardware Development Project
Mercury Systems is committed to tackling the issues of cost and time to market when it comes to DO-254 safety-critical hardware development. As commercial and military safety regulations continue to become more stringent, aerospace systems designers have to push back deadlines and invest more heavily in airborne electronic hardware engineering. With a staff of engineers who constantly have their finger on the pulse of the FAA’s ever-changing requirements, we are the perfect partner to support any safety-critical DO-254 hardware development project. Our in-depth knowledge of these demanding DO-254 compliance requirements enables us to navigate our way through the stringent process without driving up costs.
Our team’s capabilities and experience range from full hardware engineering for complete systems to single FPGA designs that can be utilized on full or partial projects. We use a fully-documented hardware development lifecycle to meet DO-254 Level A that can be tailored to meet any specific requirements.
Our team of engineers has a wide range of experience of video processing using ARINC 818 architectures. We use ModelSim as a HDL simulation environment and have knowledge of both VHDL and Verilog.
With DO-254 requirements playing an even greater role in the development of avionics systems, our disciplined approach, attention to detail, and commitment to driving costs down are greater assets than ever before.
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Accelerate Subsystem Development
Streamline safety-critical system development and the certification process with DO-254 / DO-178 design assurance checklists, guided assessments, and hardware and software artifacts.
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DO-254, "Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware," is a standard developed by the RTCA (Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics). It provides guidelines and recommendations for the development processes of complex electronic hardware systems used in aviation, ensuring they meet the development assurance objectives allocated to them. It is the hardware counterpart to the DO-178C standard for software.
Most airworthiness certification authorities in the world recognize DO-254 as an acceptable means of compliance to the regulations related to the electronics that implement airborne systems and equipment. Thus, companies involved in designing avionics hardware, particularly those that utilize complex components such as FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) and ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), and large processors, will be flowed requirements to comply with the objectives of DO-254. Moreover, it is increasingly common for military electronics to include a requirement to comply to the DO-254 objectives.
Mercury BuiltSAFE™ technologies are modular, COTS elements, complete with proven and reusable certification artifacts and technical support capabilities to meet the objectives of DO-178C and DO-254 for the applicable Design Assurance Level (DAL). They save time and cost while decreasing risk in the development of mission computing, avionics, networking and datalink/communications systems.
Mercury’s expertise and experience in solutions that meet the DO-254 objectives has been built on successful execution of dozens of programs over three decades. This domain knowledge is the foundation of boards, subsystems and software with BuiltSAFE. Our rugged, safety-certifiable building blocks have backwards compatibility and are designed with a top-down approach for interoperability and ease of pre-integration.
The Design Assurance Levels (DALs) define the activities performed by the developer to provide sufficient confidence and evidence that the electronics will perform its intended function safely when operating within the specified conditions. This is correlated heavily with the severity of the failure being mitigated by the development assurance effort, with the higher criticality of failure demanding more severe scrutiny. The levels range from A to E, with DAL A being the most exhaustive.
• DAL A: mitigates catastrophic failure (loss of life or aircraft).
• DAL B: mitigates a severe-major failure.
• DAL C: mitigates a major failure (significant reduction in safety).
• DAL D: mitigates a minor failure (minor safety impact).
• DAL E: no assurance required because the failure has no safety effect.
DO-254 compliance requires various types of documentation, including:
• Plan for Hardware Aspects of Certification (PHAC), and other planning documents and development standards.
• Hardware requirements and their validation records.
• Hardware design documentation at the conceptual and detailed levels.
• Verification cases and procedures with corresponding reports.
• Configuration Management Records, including a Hardware Configuration Index.
• Process Assurance records to demonstrate that the planned processes were followed, and errors/deviations addressed.
• Traceability Matrices linking requirements, design, and testing.
• Hardware Accomplishment Summary (HAS) that reports on the compliance of the overall development process.
DO-254 is essential for autonomous applications, such as drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as these rely heavily on complex electronic hardware to manage critical decision-making functions. Meeting the DO-254 objectives assures that the hardware operates in accordance with their design requirements, minimizing the risks to both people and property that come with autonomous operations.
DO-254 enforces a systematic process for hardware design, verification, and validation. This structured approach ensures that all potential hazards are addressed during development and that the hardware operates correctly and safely under all defined conditions. Traceability is crucial in DO-254 as it links requirements to design and verification activities. It ensures that every requirement is implemented correctly and verified thoroughly, providing a clear path to demonstrate compliance.