Galois spins out systems re-engineering company Tangram Flex

Galois of Portland, OR announced on August 9 that it is spinning out Tangram Flex, a software re-engineering company that provides smart tooling to quickly reconfigure large and complex embedded systems (planes, ships, automobiles, trains, drones, satellites, etc.). This enables the reuse of existing components alongside new capabilities, while assuring the system’s safety and security.

Today, replacing just one component in complex embedded systems is a painstaking manual process of integration and testing. Tangram Flex technology allows engineers to quickly reconfigure existing systems and to re-use components across different systems. As the smart tooling grows in knowledge, it becomes able to automatically integrate components into larger systems with limited human guidance. The technology provides strong guarantees of system safety and correctness, turning previously monolithic, outdated systems into flexible, modular, and secure modern platforms.

The initial focus of Tangram Flex is to meet the urgent needs of the Department of Defense in two main areas:

• Cyber retrofit: Many mission-critical cyber-physical systems are potentially vulnerable to cyber attackers. Cyber retrofit is the process by which an architecture is restructured to transform its cyber security posture. After a cyber retrofit, individual component vulnerabilities can no longer be leveraged as entry points into entire DoD systems.
• Mission flexibility:Adapting large DoD embedded systems to respond to changing mission needs is costly and can take years. The Tangram Flex smart tooling enables the systems’ prime contractors to shape new capabilities with confidence in the behavior of the new system, while drastically reducing the time and cost.

The technology is based on decades of research and innovation supported by organizations like DARPA and AFRL in creating provably safe embedded systems and “systems of systems” architectures. The Tangram Flex smart tooling is able to automatically generate correct, cyber secure translations between components that were not originally created to work together, avoiding flaws and vulnerabilities that often exist in system “edges” where information is sent and received. This provides a framework for whole system modeling and testing.

“Despite all the advancements in technology to date, it often takes years and millions of dollars to change one small component in a system, whether it is on an manufacturing industrial system or on a fighter jet,” said Tangram Flex CTO John Launchbury, who served as director of the Information Innovation Office (I2O) at DARPA, focused on cybersecurity and AI. “Our technology enables organizations to be more flexible and responsive, quickly adapting their systems when change is needed.”

Source: Galois