The adoption of secure real-time operating system (RTOS) software and related embedded computing security software tools for military embedded systems continues to grow, driven by increased security threats and concerns, real and perceived.
Many pundits agree that the need for information security, especially for critical and classified data, as well as the computing and data storage systems on which it resides, has never been greater. Industry has responded with myriad innovations designed to deliver security and protection at not only the system level, but also at the embedded, component level.
“There is no single architecture, product, or capability that can protect against a continuously evolving threat landscape,” cautions Chip Downing, senior director of Aerospace & Defense at Wind River in Alameda, Calif. “Today’s connected systems need to integrate a wide range of capabilities to achieve continuous security in hostile network environments. Layered, proven security components, along with capabilities to update these system components, need to be integrated to enable continuous application and service availability, while maintaining the required security capability.”
A layered security approach to critical systems and components is just one of Downing’s recommendations to aerospace and defense enterprises and end users. The most important considerations in the selection of an RTOS for aerospace and defense applications, he says, are support for open standards, safety certification, security features, and virtualization support. If a system needs to meet high levels of safety and security assurance, systems designers must have a strategy to achieve these requirements, he says.
“Due to higher system complexity and compressed system budgets, an RTOS with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) certification evidence is the wisest choice,” Downing says. “COTS certification evidence removes significant certification risk whilst lowering program costs.”
“Avionics and aerospace systems have requirements for safety-critical software, and now are requiring security to help prevent malicious fault conditions,” says Robert Day, vice president of LynuxWorks in San Jose, Calif. “DOD [U.S. Department of Defense] environments require security, especially when connected to other systems or networks, which is becoming the norm even in tactical deployments.”
Demands on operating systems is increasing, Wind River’s Downing points out. “Next-generation systems will be using multi-core processors and, in many cases, heterogeneous multi-core processors that combine state-of-the-art technologies from different silicon IP vendors into a shared compute platform. Systems designers need the capability to pick the highest utility configuration of these processors, whether it is AMP, SMP, supervised, or hypervisor architectures,” Downing recognizes. “The complexity of these systems means that early prototyping and performance analysis is critical to enable the optimum configuration of processing cores and applications; this is best achieved through the use of advanced simulation environments.”
Unmanned aircraft(UAS) are important for ISR missions, and increasingly are targets of cyber terrorists and hackers. Modern software solutions are helping to secure drones, the technologies they employ, and the information they acquire.
Engineers at the Northrop Grumman Corp. Aerospace Systems sector in Redondo Beach, Calif., chose Wind River’s VxWorks RTOS for the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program, of which the new X-47B is part. Designers at GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio, also selected VxWorks as the foundation for the backbone of UCAS-D computers, networks, and interfacing electronics, called the Common Core System. Northrop Grumman developers used VxWorks to create, deploy, and maintain critical applications, including safety-critical control systems, for the X-47B tailless unmanned aircraft.
Personnel at Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Sensors Division (MS2) in Owego, N.Y., used the LynxOS RTOS and Luminosity Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from LynuxWorks in conjunction with the United Kingdom’s Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). AWACS aircraft provide an early-warning capability by tracking aircraft at extended ranges, as well as relay vital information to commanders on the ground.
Read the full article at Avionics Intelligence