Rapita Systems Limited Public Funding

Rolls-Royce has assembled a world-class consortium of UK industry and academia to develop the next generation of microprocessors for use in aerospace and other harsh environments. The next generation of aircraft, designed to meet net-zero targets, will require more complex, intelligent, autonomous, and connected systems, and at the heart of those software-enabled systems is the need for a cyber-secure, high-integrity processor. Microprocessor design and manufacture is complex, and typically commercial off-the-shelf automotive and general-purpose microprocessors are repurposed for aerospace. That approach has issues of obsolescence, complexity and design trade-offs that have long-term cost implications. Recent experience in the automotive industry has also demonstrated how the supply chain for off-the-shelf components can be significantly and adversely affected by global events such as COVID. Project SCHEME (Safety-Critical Harsh Environment Micro-processing Evolution) will develop a new generation of UK-native, safety critical and cyber-secure microprocessors. Developing a bespoke processor reduces design and through-life costs, ensures security of supply and provides protection from the global issues that face the semiconductor industry. The project will initially develop a control processor suitable for high-integrity control and monitoring. A manufacturing and support solution will be developed that provides better obsolescence protection than is available from off-the-shelf devices. It will also provide an associated electronics, security and software tooling infrastructure to enable the UK to strengthen its position in high-integrity avionics design and manufacturing. This project will build UK national resilience in this area and make the processor available not only to aerospace, but in other areas where systems operate in harsh environments. SCHEME will engage with the wider community to identify and pursue exploitation opportunities, including supporting potential adopters with microprocessor trials. The project will put the UK in a position to design and build the low-carbon, intelligent systems that will be critical to society in the future. The project is partly funded by the UK government agencies, BEIS, ATI, and Innovate UK. Rolls-Royce is joined by TT Electronics, Volant Autonomy, Rapita Systems, Adacore, The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Queen's University Belfast, University of Bristol, University of Sheffield, and University of York.

IMPASA will reduce the cost of _development and testing_ of new safety critical aerospace software through the two new technologies for verification and automatic review of software source code. IMPASA supports the continued safety of air travel as airborne software continues to grow in complexity and importance.

HICLASS is a project to enable the delivery of the most complex software-intensive, safe and cyber-secure systems in the world. It is a strategic initiative to drive new technologies and best-practice throughout the UK aerospace supply chain, enabling the UK to affordably develop systems for the growing aircraft and avionics market expected over the next decades. It includes key primes, system suppliers, software companies and universities working together to meet the challenge of growing system complexity and size. HICLASS will allow development of new, complex, intelligent and internet-connected electronic products, safe and secure from cyber-attack that can be affordably certified.

SECT-AIR’s aims are to develop strategies for the UK high integrity software industry to significantly lower development costs and to scope a UK aerospace software centre-of excellence to maintain these strategies in the future. SECT-AIR plans to define processes and technologies that will make a step change reduction to software development costs; gain adoption of these through certification authorities and wider industry engagement and to ensure a better flow of technology between academia and industry in these areas in the future.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

This project addresses the opportunity to develop a new verification tool for the Safety Critical Systems (SCS) market. We will develop a prototype tool "RapiMV", the Rapita Model Verifier, to become a new component in our existing Rapita Verification Suite (RVS). RapiMV fills a void in the market in two key safety critical markets: Aerospace and Automotive. It introduces model checking tools for more automation, and a new approach to gathering data to reduce costs and widen tool applicability.

Awaiting Public Project Summary