NEWS
Wind River Partners with Smiths Aerospace and Ada Core Technologies to Deliver Tornado for Safety Critical Systems
The Tornado for Safety Critical Systems platform combines Wind River's securely partitioned VxWorks AE653 real-time operating system (RTOS), Tornado III integrated development environment and safety-critical features necessary to fully support robust partitioning of applications. Robust partitioning enables applications at different safety and criticality levels to be safely integrated onto a single processor fully protected from each other running on the same RTOS kernel. This saves significant time and certification costs without compromising safety when developing new or expanded safety critical systems.
"Smiths is applying the AE653 product to the Boeing C-130 Avionics Modernization Program, the Boeing 767 Tanker Transport, and other programs throughout the Smiths organization," said John Armendarez, Smiths Programs Director - Military Transport. "Collaboration with Wind River and Ada Core Technologies provides a mechanism to produce an FAA-certifiable commercial partitioned operating system that provides value to our customers by reducing the cost, size, power consumption and weight of our avionics products."
Smiths Aerospace is an industry leader in developing software applications and integrating systems utilizing software partitioned architectures. For the C-130 AMP and 767 Tanker Transport programs Smiths is integrating several avionics software applications, including the Smiths Flight Management System (FMS) and the Communication Management function, onto a single PowerPCTM processor hosting the Tornado for Safety Critical systems environment.
"Open Systems Architectures are key to Boeing's strategy of providing flexibility for future capability additions to the warfighter, as well as mitigating the ongoing effects of parts obsolescence prevalent in military avionics today," said Daryl Pelc, Boeing Director of the C-130 AMP Air Vehicle Integrated Product Team.
Tornado for Safety Critical Systems
Tornado for Safety Critical Systems is a complete COTS certification solution that provides developers with spatial and temporal partitioning in accordance with the ARINC653 standard. It includes a wide range of software development tools, a certifiable version of Wind River's VxWorks AE653 RTOS and the documentation required to support the certification process for DO-178B, Level A the highest degree of safety-critical certification for manufacturers of avionics equipment as well as requirements for lower levels.
The solution also enables avionics equipment manufacturers to mix and certify applications created in C and / or Ada languages, applications based on the POSIX and ARINC standards or existing Wind River VxWorks-based applications in an avionics system to different DO-178B levels fully protected from each other running on the same COTS-certifiable kernel. Once each individual application is developed and certified, it becomes a reusable software component that can be placed alongside other applications developed for Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) systems. This has significant benefits in the cost of development, reuse of components and system maintenance. Additionally, proprietary legacy applications can be easily ported to the platform using a visible adaptation layer.
GNAT Pro for Tornado for Safety Critical Systems
Ada Core Technologies is developing a set of software tools that supports various levels of safety-certified applications on Tornado for Safety Critical Systems. Its adaptation of the GNU Visual Debugger allows debugging of mixed language applications in Ada and C, as well as simultaneous debugging of several applications in different partitions. Since one of the main economic benefits of a partitioned operating system is to support differing levels of certification in partitions, GNAT Pro will provide Ada runtime systems suitable for various levels, along with a full Ada runtime system. Each of these profiles provides a reasonable tradeoff between language restrictions and the cost of certification for a given level. The GNAT Pro compiler rejects the compilation of program units that violate a given profile. The compiler is also built to allow the specification of special purpose profiles so that only the corresponding runtime system need be built, without requiring compiler changes to enforce the new profile.
Availability
Tornado for Safety Critical Systems will be available for beta customers in August 2002. The platform will be made fully available in Feb. 2003 for Motorola's MPC74xx and MPC750 processors, with documentation to support certification to DO-178B, Level B. Documentation for support of DO-178B, Level A will be available in Dec. 2003. Wind River is also providing a transition package for customers wishing to start early development.
About Wind River
Wind River is a worldwide leader in embedded software and services for creating connected smart devices. Wind River provides software development tools, real-time operating systems, and advanced connectivity software for use in products throughout the Internet, telecommunications and data communications, digital imaging, digital consumer electronics, networking, medical, computer peripherals, automotive, industrial automation and control, and aerospace/defense markets. Wind River is How Smart Things Think. Founded in 1983, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California, with operations worldwide.
Wind River Systems, the Wind River Systems logo, VxWorks, Tornado and How Smart Things Think(tm) are registered trademarks of Wind River Systems, Inc.
Contact Information
Jessica Miller
Global Corporate Communications