MISRA

MISRA

MISRA is a technical guidelines consortium established to improve safety, reliability, and portability of software in embedded control systems, originating from collaboration among Association of British Insurers, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, University of Cambridge, Jaguar Cars, and members of the Automotive Council; it interacts with bodies like ISO, IEC, SAE International, CENELEC, and European Commission to influence standards used by organizations such as Bosch, Continental AG, Denso Corporation, Renault, and Volvo Group.

History

The initiative began in 1990 with participants including British Standards Institution, Rolls-Royce Holdings, Lucas Industries, TRW Automotive, and academic partners such as Imperial College London and University of Manchester to address software quality in projects like those at Land Rover and Bentley Motors. Early efforts paralleled developments at ISO/IEC JTC 1, IEEE, and ETSI and responded to incidents examined by panels involving Royal Academy of Engineering and Health and Safety Executive investigators. Over time, contributors expanded to include multinational corporations like Toyota, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Nissan, Honda, and suppliers such as Magneti Marelli and ZF Friedrichshafen AG, while liaison occurred with standards committees including ISO 26262 and IEC 61508.

Purpose and Scope

The guidelines aim to reduce risks in software used in products from Aerospace Corporation projects to Thales Group systems, covering programming language usage, coding practices, and verification methods relevant to processors from ARM Holdings and microcontrollers used by STMicroelectronics and NXP Semiconductors. Scope includes embedded software in contexts involving firms like Airbus, Boeing, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Honeywell International, Rolls-Royce plc (aerospace division), and Embraer. The work complements functional safety standards found in ISO 26262 and intersects with certification regimes used by Federal Aviation Administration, European Union Aviation Safety Agency, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and procurement frameworks of companies such as Siemens Healthineers.

MISRA C and MISRA C++ Guidelines

The language-specific guidelines were first published for C with contributions from engineers at Ericsson, Siemens AG, Philips, Alcatel-Lucent, and researchers from University of Oxford. Later editions extended guidance for C++ informed by input from developers at Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel Corporation, and academics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University. The rules address undefined behavior identified in specifications like ISO/IEC 9899 (C) and ISO/IEC 14882 (C++), and they reference compiler vendors such as GCC, Clang, IAR Systems, and Green Hills Software. Each rule is classified by requiredness and rationale, used by projects at SpaceX, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon Technologies for flight software, satellite avionics, and defense systems, while also informing safety-critical application development at Medtronic and Siemens Energy.

Compliance, Certification, and Tools

Compliance is assessed via static analysis tools developed by vendors including Polyspace, Coverity, Klocwork, Parasoft, QA·C, and open-source projects supported by communities at GitHub and GitLab. Certification and auditing involve third-party assessors such as BVQI, TÜV SÜD, DNV GL, UL Solutions, and consultancy groups like Accenture, Capgemini, Bain & Company, and McKinsey & Company. Toolchains integrate with continuous integration systems from Jenkins, Travis CI, CircleCI, and Azure DevOps and are used alongside model-based development environments from MathWorks (Simulink), SCADE (ANSYS), and IBM Rational. Compliance decisions often reference jurisprudence and procurement requirements involving European Court of Justice rulings and guidance from National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Adoption and Industry Impact

Adoption spans automotive OEMs such as Volkswagen Group, Stellantis, Hyundai Motor Company, and Mazda Motor Corporation to suppliers including Aptiv, Harman International, and Valeo. Industries beyond automotive—like aerospace with Safran, maritime with Rolls-Royce plc (marine division), and medical devices at Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific—use the guidance to reduce defects and liability exposure considered by legal firms such as Allen & Overy and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Academic curricula at institutions including University of Edinburgh, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Technical University of Munich, and Tsinghua University incorporate topics related to the guidelines, influencing research output published in journals like IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, and proceedings of conferences such as International Conference on Software Engineering and Embedded Systems Week.

Category:Standards organizations