Sonair has hit a major milestone: our ADAR firmware now compiles with the latest beta of Ferrocene, moving us closer to safety certification. This keeps us on track to deliver certified, high-performance sensing for autonomous robotics.

Sonair can now compile ADAR firmware using the 26.02.00 beta release of Ferrocene, Ferrous Systems’ certified rust compiler and subset of the Rust core library (libcore). Ferrocene 25.11.00 has already been assessed by TÜV SÜD for compliance with IEC 61508 (SIL2), and 26.02.00 (expected early 2026) will expand the certified subset of libcore, giving us all the functionality we need to formally certify our firmware.

The milestone means Sonair remains on track to achieve safety certification of ADAR.

Fact box: ADAR (short for acoustic detection and ranging) is Sonair’s 3D ultrasonic sensor, aimed at boosting safety in autonomous robotics applications. Learn about it here.

‍Why this matters

Libcore is the low‑level library that provides the fundamental “toolbox” Rust programmers build on, especially for no_std and embedded applications. Since libcore has a lot of functionality that will take time to be safety certified, Ferrous has certified a subset of libcore. The first release of a certified subset arrived in the beginning of December. It was still missing functionality we needed for our firmware. The coming version, however, will include everything Sonair needs to complete the job.

We’ve worked closely with Ferrous Systems in an iterative process to identify the functionality we need from the libcore toolbox and to test beta versions. Ferrous Systems has adopted new techniques that significantly speed up the process, enabling us to reach our deadlines. Sonair views libcore as the foundation of our software “tower.” Without a solid, certified foundation, even well‑designed upper layers might collapse under certification scrutiny or unexpected failure.