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Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Green Hills Software | Subject: Integrity-178B
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 29 January 2003

RTOS to handle
fibre-optic gyro navigation system

The Integrity-178B real-time operating system has been selected by Northrop Grumman for use in an inertial navigation system for Airbus single-aisle, long-range and A380 aircraft

Northrop has also chosen the Multi integrated development environment and DO-178B certification package to develop and certify the Integrity-based software that will fly in Airbus inertial navigation systems. Northrop Grumman's LTN-101E Global Navigation Air Data Inertial Reference System (GNADIRS), slated for deployment aboard Airbus commercial jet liners starting in 2006 and possibly sooner on other commercial transport aircraft, delivers a four-fold increase in reliability over traditional navigation systems, while providing significant reductions in weight and power consumption.

Using Northrop Grumman's patented Autonomous Integrity Monitored Extrapolation (AIMET) algorithm, the new system replaces traditional laser gyros and silicon accelerometers with state-of-the-art fibre optic gyros and MEMS silicon accelerometers.

The resulting system, which integrates inertial and GPS measurements, provides highly accurate aircraft position information, as well as related information such as attitude, air speed and aircraft angle of attack.

The Integrity-178B RTOS provides real-time multitasking, memory management, interrupt processing, and I/O services for the LTN-101E navigation system application software.

The application software, written in C language using Green Hills Software's Multi IDE, will run on a PowerPC 8250 processor under Integrity-178B.

Northrop Grumman will use the Green Hills' DO-178B certification package to ensure that the software used in the LTN-101E meets the strict safety requirements of DO-178B, Level A, the highest level of safety criticality.

"Integrity's superior reliability and safety characteristics have made it the RTOS of choice for a broad range of military and commercial aircraft, including Airbus, Joint Strike Fighter, the Sikorsky Helicopter, the B-1B Bomber and the C-17 jet transport plane", said John Carbone, Vice President of Marketing at Green Hills Software.

"Whether the application is being developed using C or Ada, or a combination of both, Integrity provides the most reliable, secure platform for hosting airborne software - and it meets the strictest DO-178B safety requirements".

"Integrity's high-reliability credentials, integrated development support, and commercially available DO-178B certification package were key factors in our decision to move from a home-grown RTOS to Integrity", said Don Conners, Director of Commercial Avionic Engineering at Northrop Grumman's Navigation Systems Division.

"Green Hills has also impressed us with their excellent support and willingness to provide an RTOS and development tool solution customised to our needs".

Integrity-178B is an ARINC-653-compliant, fault-tolerant, hard-real-time operating system designed from the ground up for safety- and mission-critical applications that require the utmost security and fast, predictable response.

Utilising hardware memory protection and offering an optional advanced two-level partition scheduler, Integrity-178B provides complete time, space, and resource partitioning between applications operating on the same hardware platform.

Integrity-178B also provides guaranteed resource availability in both the time and space domains.

This combination facilitates "robust partitioning" (as defined in ARINC 653), enabling applications that have been assigned different DO-178B safety levels to run concurrently on the same processor.

Integrity-178B includes an RTOS simulator (ISIM) that enables programmers to develop and test their code on a PC or workstation without the need for target hardware.

Integrity-178B also features a real-time event analyser that enables viewing of system and user events in a graphical display.

Integrity-178B is tightly integrated with Green Hills Software's Multi IDE.

Together with Green Hills Software's C/C++/EC++ optimising compilers, Multi automates all aspects of embedded software development, including editing, source-level debugging, program building, run-time error checking, version control, and code/performance optimisation.

Multi also features an advanced code coverage tool (G-Cover) that automates structural coverage analysis for application software, including the analysis of DO-178B Table A-7, Objectives 5, 6, and 7 (statement, decision, and MCDC coverage achievement).

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