Motor Industry Software Reliability Association

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The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA) is an organization that produces guidelines for the software developed for electronic components used in the automotive industry. [1] It is a collaboration between numerous vehicle manufacturers, component suppliers and engineering consultancies.

Contents

Aim

The aim of this organization is to provide advice in questions of quality assurance mainly to the automotive industry for the creation and application of safe, reliable software within vehicles. [2] The mission statement of MISRA is "To provide assistance to the automotive industry in the application and creation within vehicle systems of safe and reliable software". [3] The safety requirements of the software used in control units of Automobiles is specific as compared to that of other industries and devices.

MISRA creates, reviews and publishes (sells) standards, such as the MISRA C Coding Standard for the C programming language, first published in 1998.

History

MISRA was formed in the 1990s by a consortium of organizations formed in response to the UK Safety Critical Systems Research Programme. This program was supported by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Another program was "SafeIT".

Subsequently MISRA published its first guide, "Development guidelines for vehicle based software", which is considered a foundational element of functional safety by the engineering community. This was roughly ten years before the creation of the ISO 26262 standard.

Organization (MISRA Consortium)

Since 2021, MISRA is managed by the MISRA Consortium Limited, an independent not-for-profit entity. [4] [5]

The Steering Committee is as follows (2024).

Steering Committee

Former members are: Protean Electric Ltd [6]

Activities

According to MISRA, the following activities are pursued:

Guidelines

MISRA guidelines are a set of development guidelines to ensure safe and reliable development of control software for electronic control units (ECUs). The primary focus of the MISRA guidelines is error prevention, not programming style. Among other things, the guidelines are intended to guide and support the following objectives

As with many standards (for example, ISO, BSI, RTCA), the MISRA guideline documents are not free to users or implementers. [8]

Coding guidelines

MISRA guidelines are primarily focused and derived for the C and C++ programming languages. The main standard is known as "MISRA C" and has been updated several times.

Table 1: Overview of MISRA guidelines C/C++
LanguageStandard (year)Exact specifierEditionIncremental UpdatesFeatures
C1998MISRA C:19981st-Original guidance emerging from the automotive industry.
2004MISRA C:20042nd-Add user feedback and cross-industry applications
2012MISRA C:20123rd-Add support for C99 language features, improved strong typing model, analysis keywords
2019MISRA C:20191st Revision based on MISRA C:2012 (3rd) with amendment 1 (AMD1) and technical corrigendum 1 (TC1)Add additional security guidelines
2023MISRA C:20232nd Revision based on MISRA C:2012 (3rd) with AMD2, AMD3, and AMD4, plus TC2Add C11 and C18 language features
2008Initial launch of standard
C++2023MISRA C++:2023Guidelines for the use C++17 in critical systems

See also

Official website

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References

  1. ↑ Ward, D.D. (2006). "MISRA standards for automotive software". 2nd IEE Conference on Automotive Electronics. London, UK: IEE. pp. 5–18. doi:10.1049/ic:20060570 (inactive 7 December 2024). ISBN   978-0-86341-609-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)
  2. ↑ Pagès, Louis César (2021). "Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA): MISRA C for Software Development HIS Seminar: Standards and Certification". Conference: Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA): MISRA C for Software Development HIS Seminar: Standards and Certification. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.15024.79369.
  3. ↑ "MISRA" . Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  4. ↑ "THE MISRA CONSORTIUM LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  5. ↑ "MISRA Website" . Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  6. ↑ "MISRA Web site > MISRA Home > Who are we?". www.misra.org.uk. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  7. ↑ Bagnara, Roberto (2017). "MISRA C, for Security's Sake!". arXiv: 1705.03517 [cs.SE].
  8. ↑ "MISRA Web site > Buy online". www.misra.org.uk. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
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