Electrical engineers at SenSyTech Inc. in Newington, Va., were designing a wing-attached payload that simulates hostile radar signals, used to train weapon-systems operators. They needed a secure communications path between software components, and found an answer at Green Hills Software, Santa Barbara, Calif.

Designers in the SenSyTech Active Systems Division (ASD) will use the Green Hills Integrity RTOS and Multi-integrated development environment for the project.

"We had to isolate new software functionality from that of our legacy code at the RTOS level," says Larry Lang, a SenSyTech senior software and hardware engineer. "The Integrity RTOS allowed us to develop a software architecture that gave us the desired protection for new development components and, at the same time, provided safe mechanisms for communicating with legacy components."

The Integrity RTOS, combined with a ruggedized PowerPC board and custom circuit boards, controls the real-time computer control set (CCS) built into each pod. The CCS generates the radio-frequency (RF) output signature that simulates hostile radars. During flight operation, the CCS will receive commands from an operator in the cockpit and respond with status via the aircraft MIL-STD-1553B bus. For more information, see www.ghs.com.