NEWS
Northrop Grumman Selects Wind River for Flight Control and Mission Systems on Its X-47B Navy-Unmanned Aerial Combat System
The X-47B N-UCAS, as a carrier-capable, multi-mission, unmanned combat air vehicle is transformational. The US Navy's program (Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration, or UCAS-D) is designed to mature critical technologies and reduce the risk of carrier integration of a UCAS while providing the information necessary to support a potential follow-on acquisition milestone decision. Wind River VxWorks 653 provides Northrop Grumman with a proven, safe and reliable solution for its safety-critical control systems.
"We chose Wind River because of our successful past usage of VxWorks, and its forward-looking product strategy that allows us to migrate to ARINC 653 and secure Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) systems," said Tighe Parmenter, Manager, X-47B Navy UCAS Business Strategy and Development, Northrop Grumman. "In addition, the platform enables reductions in device size, weight and power, thereby reducing significant design, engineering and production risks."
Wind River's VxWorks 653 offers an industry-leading Certification Evidence DVD containing required documentation for the customer to deploy the VxWorks 653 real-time operating system in numerous safety-certified systems, with robust support for applications running at different safety levels on the same silicon. The platform also includes unique RTCA DO-178B-qualified development and verification tools that remove significant time, costs and risk for testing and deploying IMA systems.
"Our VxWorks 653 system removes the risk out of creating compact, small footprint avionics systems, making it the most compelling compute platform for complex, flight-critical systems involved in challenging missions such as unmanned systems like the X-47B N-UCAS," said Rob Hoffman, vice president and general manager for Aerospace and Defense at Wind River. "We are excited to work with Northrop Grumman and to provide our proven VxWorks 653 solution for such an ambitious project that represents the future of unmanned systems technology."
About Wind River VxWorks 653
The Wind River VxWorks platforms are complete, flexible, optimized COTS development and run-time platforms that work out of the box and across the enterprise. The platforms provide a powerful, scalable development and on-chip debugging environment built on open standards and industry-leading tools, the industry's most trusted commercial grade real-time operating system (RTOS), and tightly integrated run-time technologies. This proven technology package is backed by a 25-year track record, an exceptional ecosystem of hardware and software partners, and the industry's most comprehensive support organization. To learn more about Wind River's aerospace and defense services, visit www.windriver.com/solutions/industries/aerospace-defense or blogs.windriver.com.
About Wind River
Wind River is the global leader in Device Software Optimization (DSO). Wind River enables companies to develop, run and manage device software faster, better, at lower cost and more reliably. Wind River platforms are pre-integrated, fully standardized, enterprise-wide development solutions. They reduce effort, cost and risk and optimize quality and reliability at all phases of the device software development process, from concept to deployed product.
Founded in 1981, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, Calif., with operations worldwide. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com.
The Wind River logo is a trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc., and Wind River is a registered trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc. Other marks used herein are the property of the respective owners.
Contact Information
Jessica Miller
Global Corporate Communications