Validating the Sacem Railway Control System Using the Idas Software Test and Debugging Tool
1989; Elsevier BV; Volume: 22; Issue: 19 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s1474-6670(17)52796-2
ISSN2589-3653
Autores Tópico(s)Risk and Safety Analysis
ResumoIncreased traffic in public transportation leads to adapt continually technical means to evolving requirements. For the “A” line of the “RER” railway in the PARIS area, these requirements include a rate of traffic flow higher than 50 000 passengers per hour. This requirement cannot be met with ordinary systems based on traffic lights along railroads. That is why the Pans Rapid Transit Authority (RATP) has developed a new system called SACEM which makes an extensive use of microprocessors and software. The SACEM system will allow an increase of 25% of the traffic flow. Obviously very stringent safety constraints are attached to the whole system and a critical issue is the validation of software especially because it has to be conducted in a real environment. The chosen solution is the use of the IDAS (Copyright 1985 - ESD) system developed by Electronique Serge Dassault. This system provides both the ability not to disturb the tested software and to formalize test sets which consist of test programs written in a dedicated language. The latter capability is especially useful to perform regression testing i.e. to rerun test sets whenever the software is modified. Non-disturbance of the tested program is obtained by the use of a hardware interface connecting the IDAS system to target computers. The IDAS system allows to test software written in various languages and running on different hardware. For the SACEM system, the language is Modula2, the target machine is a MOTOROLA 68020 operated at 25 MHz and IDAS allows to record information every 50 to 100 microseconds (85 MO of disk storage are provided for this purpose in the hardware interface). These capabilities make IDAS a key element in the overall quality insurance process of the SACEM system.
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