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Tech Source, Inc., an independent supplier of high performance embedded video, graphics and high end computing solutions, has successfully added driver support for Wind River® VxWorks® real-time operating system (RTOS) to its low power Condor VC100x H.264 video capture and compression card.
By adding support for the leading RTOS – VxWorks is used in over a billion embedded systems around the world – Tech Source will be able to target those developing mission and safety critical video streaming applications for aerospace and defense customers, such as unmanned aerial vehicles.
Selwyn L. Henriques, president and CEO of Tech Source Inc., said: “Most mission and safety critical applications use a real-time operating system, so our support for VxWorks will enable us to target the safety critical market and applications that require capture and encoding of video data with lower latencies.”
“Our Condor VC100x card has been designed for use in UAVs that require low power and yet high profile H.264 compression in a compact, lightweight form factor,” continues Mr. Henriques. “VxWorks provides UAVs real-time capability while keeping size, weight and power (SWaP) demands to a minimum.”
“The Condor VC100x enables a rapid upgrade to legacy systems, and, when combined with open standards like OpenGL, POSIX, Linux, FACE, and ARINC 653, can rapidly deploy enhanced video across a wide range of aerospace systems,” states Chip Downing, senior director of aerospace and defense at Wind River. “The combination of Condor and VxWorks enables Tech Source and Wind River customers to leverage the broad range of powerful capabilities built into both products.”
Tech Source’s XMC form factor module – featuring an H.264 video encoder with baseline, main and high profile support up to Level 4.1 – supports up to 4 composite video inputs (NTSC/PAL/SECAM) or up to 2 SDI inputs (SD-SDI/HD-SDI), all of which are selectable through the provided API. The VC100x also has 2 stereo or 4 mono audio inputs.
The Condor VC100x card performs H.264 encoding in hardware to minimize CPU usage. Video data is captured and stored in files and made available to customer applications for processing, analysis or display on a local graphics card.
Condor VC100x is available in various ruggedized levels and has conduction or convection cooled variants. While Windows, Linux, and VxWorks drivers are available by default, other real time operating systems (RTOS) such as Integrity and LynxOS may be optionally supported on both X86 and PowerPC platforms.
Tech Source will demonstrate the Condor VC100x – and other products – on Booth 1513 at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems , DC Convention Center, Washington, DC, 12-15 August 2013 and also on Booth S3-337 at DSEI Defense Exhibition 10-13 September 2013, London, UK.
Tech Source has been developing graphics solutions for air traffic control, military and embedded applications for over 25 years. The ISO9001:2008 certified company offers a range of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products, including graphics processors – targeted at general purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU) applications, input solutions, video compression and streaming boards, imaging cards, recording solutions and software libraries. Key markets include airborne, shipboard, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and ground based systems.
