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LDRA Limited

Company type	Privately held company
Industry	Software testing
Founded	1975
Headquarters	Wirral Peninsula, England
Key people	Professor Michael Hennell, CEO
Products	LDRA tool suite, TBrun, TBvision, & others
Website	http://www.ldra.com

LDRA, previously known as the Liverpool Data Research Associates, is a privately held company producing software analysis, testing, and requirements traceability tools for the public and private sectors. It is involved static and dynamic software analysis.

History

Liverpool Data Research Associates was founded in 1975 by Professor Michael Hennell to commercialize a software test-bed created to perform quality assessments on the mathematical libraries on which his nuclear physics research at the University of Liverpool depended. This research included the invention of the Linear Code Sequence and Jump (LCSAJ) software analysis method.

Products

LDRA tool suite

LDRA tool suite is a proprietary software analysis tool providing static code analysis, and also provides code coverage analysis, code, quality, and design reviews. It is a commercial implementation of the software test-bed created by Hennell as part of his university research.

It is used primarily where software is required to be reliable, rugged, and as error free as possible, such as in safety critical aerospace electronics (or Avionics). It has also been used in the detection and removal of security vulnerabilities.

LDRA tool suite is an integrated suite of software tools from LDRA, including:

• TBrun — an automated unit testing tool
• TBmanager — a requirements traceability tool
• TBevolve — supports software baseline management
• TBsafe — supports certification objectives: DO-178C, Def Stan 00-55, IEC 61508
• TBpublish — for publishing HTML indexes
• TBaudit — for Microsoft Word reports
• LDRAcover — coverage tool
• LDRArules — standards compliance
• TBmisra — LDRArules add-on to apply MISRA C and other related or similar safety and security rulesets
• Tool Qualification Support Packages — for safety- and security-critical workflows, e.g., DO-178C

LDRA Testbed

LDRA Testbed was a set of core static and dynamic analysis engines for both host and embedded software. LDRA Testbed is made by Liverpool Data Research Associates (LDRA). LDRA Testbed provides the means to enforce compliance with coding standards such as MISRA, JSF++ AV, CERT C, CWE and provides visibility of software flaws that might typically pass through the standard build and test process to become latent problems. In addition, test effectiveness feedback is provided through structural coverage analysis reporting facilities, which support the requirements of the DO-178B standard up to and including Level A.

LDRA Testbed automatically checks adherence to programming standards with static analysis. LDRA Testbed reports violations of the chosen set of standards in both textual reports and as annotations to graphical displays. It includes a dynamic coverage analysis module. LDRA Testbed has a software quality metrics breakdown (e.g. Halstead complexity, cyclomatic complexity, Knots metric) from static analysis.

Some companies using LDRA products include MathWorks, which has integrated its Simulink tools, as well as IBM Rational Rose and Wind River.

FAA/EASA verification

In March 2012, LDRA announced a fully compliant FAA/EASA certification solution to provide support and guide certification applicants through a wide range of standards including:

• DO-178C(B), DO-278A, DO-254
• IEC 62304
• ISO 26262
• EN 50128
• IEC 60880

Formula One launch control controversy

Following the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a Formula One race, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) hired LDRA to investigate allegations of cheating. These involved driving aids that had been prohibited at the start of the year, such as traction control and launch control. The top three cars of Michael Schumacher (Benetton), Nicola Larini (Ferrari) and Mika Häkkinen (McLaren) were investigated and their teams were asked to surrender their systems' source code to the company. Ferrari complied but Benetton and McLaren refused, citing copyright reasons. After being fined $100,000 by the FIA, both teams complied eight days after the race. LDRA found that McLaren were running a program that permitted automatic gearshifts but the car was declared legal.

The winning Benetton-Ford car was found to have launch control software in its engine management computer, designed to regulate engine speed and prevent wheel spin. Benetton admitted its presence but asserted that it wasn’t used during the race, asserting it was added for testing and left there due to workload pressures. LDRA concluded that the software likely wasn't used during the Grand Prix, leading the FIA to take no action against Benetton or Schumacher. The incident underscored concerns about prohibited software in Formula 1 and the challenges of enforcing regulations in the evolving landscape of engine management technology.

Industry standards

LDRA is a contributor to several industry standards, including DO-178C, MISRA C and MISRA C++. Additionally, LDRA is an Industry Partner for the CERT C Secure Coding Standard produced by the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute.

In September 2012, the United States arm of LDRA joined The Open Group's Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium as a Verification Authority.

References

1. "LDRA". NASA Software Engineering Handbook. 13 July 2018.
2. M. A. Hennell, An experimental test bed for numerical software. {I}. {Fortran}, The Computer Journal 21(4):333--336, @nov, 1978
3. M. A. Hennell and D. Hedley, An experimental testbed for numerical software. {II}. {ALGOL 68}, The Computer Journal 22(1):53--56, @feb, 1979
4. M.A. Hennell, M.R.Woodward and D.Hedley, "On program analysis", Information Processing Letters, 5(5), pp. 136 – 140, 1976
5. John Binder, Testing software: The new frontier, Aerospace America, June 2005, pp 30 - 31
6. Jay-Evan J. Tevis, John A. Hamilton, Methods for the prevention, detection and removal of software security vulnerabilities, Proceedings of the 42nd ACM annual Southeast regional conference, pp 197 - 202, Huntsville, Alabama, 2004, ISBN 1-58113-870-9
7. ^ "LDRA". Retrieved 7 February 2019.
8. "New code analysis tool released by LDRA at Design East". Military Embedded Systems. Retrieved 29 January 2013.
9. "DESIGN East - LDRArules programming rule checker assures standards compliance". Embedded.com. Retrieved 29 January 2013.
10. Hennell, Michael (1978). "Experimental testbed for numerical software". The Computer Journal. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
11. Hughes, Janice (2011). "LDRA Ltd and MathWorks Join Forces to Integrate Product to Provide Independent Verification & Lowers Embedded Development Costs". LDRA. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
12. Mcconnel, Toni (2008). "LDRA integrates tool suite with IBM Rational Rose RealTime MDDE". Wirral, UK: EE Times. Archived from the original on 28 August 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2011.
13. "LDRA integrates tool suite with IBM Rational Rose RealTime MDDE". WindRiver. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
14. "Design West: LDRA Certification Services streamlines FAA/EASA certification at LDRA Certification Services streamlines FAA/EASA certification at a fixed price". Design West. Retrieved 29 January 2013.
15. "May the best car win". New Scientist. September 1994. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
16. "Benetton Launch Control". Motorsport.com. 25 March 1995. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
17. "Benetton in the dock". Motorsport Magazine. 8 May 1994. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
18. LDRA Certification Services team lead to be formally recognized in Washington, D.C. as a key member of the RTCA SC-205 Committee. 30 April 2012 01:00 PM Eastern Time (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120430005629/en/RTCA-Honors-LCS-Team-Lead-Todd-R.)
19. MISRA - The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association - MISRA C, http://www.misra-c2.com/
20. MISRA - The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association - MISRA C ++, http://www.misra-cpp.com/
21. CERT Research Annual Report 2008, SEI Communications, Executive Editor Richard Linger
22. CERT C Secure Coding Standard, The, Robert C. Seacord, 14 Oct 2008, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-321-56321-2.
23. "FACE approved verification authorities". The open Group. Retrieved 8 August 2023.

• Privately held companies of the United Kingdom
• Science and technology in Merseyside
• Software companies of the United Kingdom
• University of Liverpool
• Companies based in Wirral