SYSGO and Kontron

SYSGO and Kontron intensify Cooperation and develop fully integrated Secure Platform for safety-critical Railway Applications

Kontron, a leading global provider of IoT/Embedded Computer Technology (ECT), and SYSGO have jointly started the development of an integrated platform for safety-critical railway solutions based on Kontron's SAFe-VX hardware. The aim is to provide customers with a solid and flexible basis for certifiable applications in trains and signaling. Kontron brings to the cooperation its proven COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) hardware, which is already used in many railway systems and has been certified up to SIL-4, the highest level of the IEC 61508 standard for functional safety of electronic systems. The SAFe-VX Kontron hardware platform will run under SYSGO's real-time operating system PikeOS®, which is already used in EN 50128/SIL-4 certified systems, on both single and multi-core architectures. Additionally, PikeOS® is the only real-time operating system with separation kernel certified to EAL 3+ Common Criteria security standard to fulfil functional safety as well as security requirements on the same system.

Several railway application developers are already using PikeOS® on the robust and proven Kontron hardware. "With our cooperation and the joint development of an integrated platform, we want to enable our customers to accelerate the development of their systems and significantly reduce the effort for certification," comments Robert Negre, VP of business development at Kontron for the railway market segment. Both Kontron and SYSGO offer certification kits with detailed product documentation.

Kontron and SYSGO have already identified several opportunities for autonomous train driving and rail signaling applications, where SAFe-VX vital processing platform is a perfect match. "Both Kontron and SYSGO have extensive experience with safety-critical and certifiable systems for the railway market," says Markus Jastroch, Director Marketing Communication at SYSGO. "With our common platform, we offer developers the basis that meets the most stringent functional safety and embedded security requirements."