New Frontiers in Real-Time Software

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July 23, 2020

New Frontiers in Real-Time Software

Published in Military & Aerospace Electronics
Written by Jamie Whitney

Real-time software in embedded computing, like real-time operating systems (RTOS) in military and aviation applications, must work quickly and with no errors. On top of reliability, experts in real-time technology say it must have robust information security for critical and classified data.

“The intrinsic value of an RTOS is to provide guaranteed processing performance,” explains Richard Jaenicke, director of marketing for Green Hills Software in Santa Barbara, Calif. “For sensor signal processing, that can be used to make sure the data is processed in real time so that none are dropped. To achieve that level of determinism, an RTOS generally is smaller and faster than a basic OS, consuming fewer resources. Consuming fewer resources is a particular advantage when running on processor cores embedded in an FPGA [Field Programmable Gate Array]. Finally, many RTOS are safety-certifiable. The safest RTOS are based on a separation kernel, which isolates applications from each other and from the kernel so that a fault in one cannot affect the others. When a particular function requires the absolute lowest latency, it can be included in the kernel and still retain the benefits of isolation from the other applications.”

Ray Petty, vice president of global aerospace and defense at Wind River Systems in Alameda, Calif., says that embedded systems control technologies are used in our daily lives from phones to airplanes.

“Embedded systems typically comprise both hardware and software,” Petty says. “The hardware consists of tiny components, like microcontrollers or microprocessors. The software is usually a real-time operating system, such as VxWorks, that performs dedicated tasks and is designed to control time-dependent applications and components in a consistent and predictable manner. RTOS form the foundation of an embedded system.”

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What is Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE)?

The FACE Consortium, led by The Open Group, is aviation-focused and made up of U.S. industry suppliers, customers, and users. FACE aims to standardize approaches to bring open standards software to avionics systems. These avionics systems will result in lower implementation costs for the U.S. government and other adopters of the standard. Using the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), Open Architecture (OA), and Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA), FACE supports a robust architecture for enabling software development.

 

Curtiss-Wright hardware supporting Wind River OSs

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Curtiss-Wright hardware supporting Green Hills INTEGRITY

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Curtiss-Wright hardware supporting Lynx Software

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Digital Cockpit Flight Display Video

Wind River, Ansys, CoreAVI, Curtiss-Wright, and RTI have collaborated to create a solution stack that enables a digital cockpit flight display with touchscreen capabilities for a FACE solution.