Reading, UK, Wednesday, 26 August 2020 – Lynx Software Technologies, an innovator in modern platform software technologies, today announced that General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has adopted the LYNX MOSA.ic™ software framework for the Gray Eagle Extended Range (GE-ER) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).
LYNX MOSA.ic is aligned with GA-ASI’s objectives to meet software-modernization targets for the GE-ER program that include safety and cost efficiency, as well as introducing new features, increasing system robustness and securing future flexibility.
The GE-ER is a multi-mission UAS including surveillance and other intelligence gathering. The air vehicle carries sensors including color and thermographic cameras, and is piloted remotely from a ground-control station via satellite data link or optionally by line-of-sight data link. An early goal of the software modernization sought to integrate a new and advanced video codec implemented on the Zynq UltraScale+ adaptable multiprocessor system on chip (MPSoC) from Xilinx, Inc. The modularity of LYNX MOSA.ic enabled the team to achieve an efficient and robust solution in a mixed criticality environment including both Linux and a deterministic real-time operating system. LYNX MOSA.ic securely partitions networking, security, safety and multimedia domains from each other with prescriptive, defined and immutable allocation of hardware resources to each. This allowed the incorporation of the Xilinx hardware without compromising hardware dependencies or the performance and determinism of other time-critical processes.
Although DO-178 certification isn’t an immediate requirement for the system, GA-ASI views the fact that Lynx provides a proven DO-178 certified OS with a path to DAL-A support as a significant advantage.
“The video codec on the Zynq UltraScale+ supports concurrent 4K 60 fps video encoding, decoding and transcoding, is extremely efficient and will extend the capabilities of GE-ER, leveraging features of LYNX MOSA.ic to ensure reliability and system safety, said John Blevins, Senior Manager, Embedded Software and Ecosystem, at Xilinx.
“GA-ASI is a recognized innovator and leader in its field of unmanned aircraft, so Lynx is naturally excited to be entrusted to supply technology for this software modernization program,” said Pavan Singh, VP Product Management, “our focus now is on ensuring the successful execution of this program through the development and into deployment”.
GA-ASI identified LYNX MOSA.ic as the best platform to satisfy current and future demands for GE-ER modernization. Supporting today’s computing trends moving towards multicore processors and hardware acceleration leveraging complex programmable SoCs, LYNX MOSA.ic enables real-time operating systems (RTOS), commercial OSes, and bare-metal software to coexist on the same platform and maintain robust separation. The platform’s open integration framework promotes safe software re-use to help realize cost efficiencies and shorten development and integration cycles. With unique features to optimize hardware on boot-up and securely lock-down the configuration to prevent unintentional modification or malicious interference, LYNX MOSA.ic ensures operational safety and robustness and provides state-of-the-art cybersecurity.
About LYNX MOSA.ic™
LYNX MOSA.ic™ is the framework for development and integration of complex multi-core safety or security systems. Built on the LynxSecure separation kernel hypervisor, LYNX MOSA.ic supports a variety of operating systems such as LynxOS-178, Linux, Windows®, third-party RTOS and bare metal applications including Lynx Simple Applications. LYNX MOSA.ic runs on Arm, Intel®, Power® and adaptive computing architectures.
About Lynx Software Technologies
Since 1988, companies have entrusted Lynx Software Technologies to deliver modern platform software technologies that accelerate the development, certification and deployment of robust, safety-critical, high-availability systems for the avionics and defence industries. The FAA has recognized our industry leadership by awarding Lynx the first and only FAA Reusable Software Component certificate for an operating system. In an increasingly connected world, the applicability of Lynx technology is broadening to specific applications in automotive, industrial IoT and IT infrastructure. Together with our growing set of technology partners, Lynx is focused on enabling a world where all autonomous systems are safe, secured and trusted.
For more information, visit www.lynx.com.
