Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division has announced a collaboration with Lynx Software Technologies to offer the LynxSecure Safety Bundle on its safety-certifiable, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Intel Xeon-based single board computers (SBCs) for unmanned vehicles and other aerospace and defense platforms.
The first Curtiss-Wright product to support LynxSecure Safety Bundle is the 3U OpenVPX VPX3-1220, an RTCA/DO-254 Design Assurance Level (DAL) C safety-certifiable SBC. Based on Intel’s Mobile Xeon processor, the rugged VPX3-1220 features a low-power version of the Xeon processor. It delivers high-performance quad-core x86 processing with integrated graphics at 50% the typical power levels of previous solutions. Support for the LynxSecure Safety Bundle on the VPX3-1220 enables systems integrators to build 2nd generation IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) Systems using Curtiss-Wright’s market leading Intel multi-core COTS modules.
“We are excited to collaborate with Lynx Software Technologies to ease the certification process for systems integrators by bringing a complete DO-254/178 hardware and software solution to the embedded defense and aerospace market,” said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions division. “With its assured separation between critical and non-critical application development, the LynxSecure Safety Bundle provides avionics system developers with an innovative method of simplifying the software certification process.”
“With this latest board support package, we’re offering DO-178C customers a migration path to next-generation Intel multi-core hardware resulting in more performance, more memory, and the ability to run more sophisticated second generation Integrated Modular Avionics applications on a safety-critical OS,” said John Blevins, Director of Product Marketing at Lynx Software Technologies. “Customers that use Curtiss-Wright boards and our LynxSecure Safety Bundle should feel confident and secure that they are getting the best support for their hardware and software combinations for all of their mixed safety-critical applications IMA applications. The availability of DO-254 artifacts for the VPX3-1220 coupled with the FAA Reusable Software Component artifacts of LynxOS-178 will significantly reduce the cost and time to market for next generation IMA systems.”
The announcement follows Lynx’s recent introduction of its LynxSecure Safety Bundle for Intel processors and 2nd generation IMA development. The LynxSecure Safety Bundle features LynxSecure, a secure-by-design separation kernel hypervisor, as a foundation for highly efficiently integrated paravirtualized OS integrations. Because LynxSecure provides assured separation, only software in the LynxOS-178 partition needs to achieve DO-178 certification, even though the software resides on the same processor as non-critical applications with no safety requirements. This assured separation delivers critical time, risk and cost savings in the software certification process. The combination of Curtiss-Wright’s RTCA/DO-254 safety-certifiable SBCs and data artifact kits and LynxSecure Safety Bundle provides system designers with a complete COTS hardware/software solution, and significantly reduces the time and cost for integrators to certify IMA systems deployed on military and commercial manned and unmanned aircraft.
Manufactured with an RTCA/DO-254 design process from the beginning of the development cycle, Curtiss-Wright’s safety-certifiable multi-core processor SBCs, such as the VPX3-1220, offer an RTCA/DO-254 data artifact package to speed and ease the safety certification process. These SBCs also offer certifiable board support packages (BSP) with RTCA/DO-178 artifacts for multi-core real-time operating systems (RTOS) such as LynxOS-178.
The VPX3-1220 3U is the industry’s first multi-core Intel Xeon-based SBC designed to meet DO-254 DAL C for use on safety critical military and civil aerospace platforms. Designed for general purpose mission computing applications that require the highest possible processing performance while consuming low power, the VPX3-1220 is ideal for use in SWaP-C constrained aerospace and defense systems such as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). It speeds and simplifies the integration of Intel Xeon-class processing into demanding deployed applications, such as mission computing and image and display processing. The high-performance, safety-certifiable COTS module is supported by a wide range of popular operating environments, including RTOSs certifiable to DO-178C. Available with certifiable DO-254 design artifacts from Curtiss-Wright, the VPX module can greatly speed the deployment and certification of critical manned and unmanned airborne safety-certifiable applications.
