SANTA BARBARA, Calif., 21 Oct. 2015. Georgia Tech Research Institute officials in Atlanta sought an open, flexible operating system with multicore support with which to modernize the C-130 military aircraft. They found their solution for the U.S. Air National Guard’s Tactical Airlift Mission Software Suite (TAMSS) software modernization program at Green Hills Software, a provider of high-assurance operating systems in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Georgia Tech Research Institute staff will transform the existing airborne C-130 computer system, based on an Intel i7 multicore processor, from a single-use model to a multi-use platform capable of hosting diverse applications and enable future growth. This new software environment will be based on Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY-178 Time-Variant Unified Multi Processing (tuMP) operating system for Intel architectures.
“The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP operating system was selected for the TAMSS software infrastructure due to its multicore service history and its ability to support an architecture that is flexible, open, adaptable, robust, predictable, and capable of meeting probable future security requirements,” says Brian Rianhard, associate division chief at Georgia Tech Research Institute. “The TAMSS software modernization requires the ability to host a diversity of new and legacy applications written in multiple languages, provide open interfaces, meet hard real-time deadlines, enforce time and space separation, exploit a multicore architecture, and have the ability to reduce cost and schedule risk by hosting guest operating systems and their legacy applications in virtual memory.
“Using INTEGRITY-178 tuMP we are able to integrate applications that require Windows and Linux into user-defined affinity groups and partitions,” Rianhard adds, “thus enabling seamless reuse of Ada/C/C++ and Java applications, while simultaneously having the ability to host critical applications using its native RTOS interfaces into other affinity groups and partitions.”
“The C-130 is an amazing and proven workhorse aircraft with unmatched mission capabilities,” says Dan O’Dowd, founder and chief executive officer of Green Hills Software. “Our safe and secure INTEGRITY-178 is currently being used on many airborne C-130 systems and we are very proud to support GTRI and the US Air National Guard’s TAMSS system with our INTEGRITY-178 tuMP operating system with its advanced GuestOS virtualization capabilities.”
The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP multicore operating system is available for Intel, Freescale QorIQ and ARM architectures. INTEGRITY-178 tuMP for Intel architectures also offers support for Windows and Linux virtualization. INTEGRITY-178 tuMP has been shipping to Green Hills aerospace and defense customers since 2011 and builds upon a proven fourteen-year service history and certification pedigree by incorporating multicore operating system capabilities, including support for AMP and SMP.
INTEGRITY-178 tuMP defines groupings (called affinity groups) of how cores will be utilized by one or more applications, with the grouping of cores and applications being permitted to vary over time. Sets of affinity groups are then scheduled independently of other sets of affinity groups, permitting time-lines that closely correspond to application requirements, yet also permitting other sets of affinity groups to be developed that can make use of time windows where cores are not being utilized. Support for multiple simultaneous schedules further extends the tuMP scheduling capabilities, permitting tailoring of available applications and processor time resources based on the vehicles’ operational needs, such as flight or combat phase.
INTEGRITY-178 tuMP extends partitioning support beyond single-core processors, ensuring that this highly flexible capability can continue to be effectively used to host multiple applications while preserving resources for application growth without concern about future availability of new single-core processor designs.
INTEGRITY-178 tuMP offers complete support for the ARINC-653 Part 1 standard as well as Part 2 optional features such as Sampling Port Data Structures, Sampling Port Extensions, Memory Blocks, Multiple Module Schedules and File System. INTEGRITY-178 tuMP also aligns with the FACE 2.1 Safety Base and Security profiles.
Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the largest independent vendor of embedded development solutions. In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions.
