Operating system is a critical component in the second stage of the Eurofighter program
By John McHale
The Integrity real-time operating system (RTOS) and AdaMULTI Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from Green Hills Software in Santa Barbara, Calif., are being used in the development and implementation of mission-critical systems deployed in the latest Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.
The Integrity RTOS is being used as a critical component in a number of the aircraft’s “line-replaceable” items, Green Hills Software officials say.
Eurofighter Typhoon, a swing-role combat aircraft, developed by Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, will fulfill European Air Force requirements well into the mid-21st Century. The aircraft is in full production and has been in service with all partner Air Forces since 2004. Those four Nations and Austria have 638 of these aircraft under contract.
The Eurofoghter Typhoon aircraft uses Green Hills Integrity real-time operating system.
“The Integrity RTOS is an essential element in delivering the levels of system availability and reliability that are required by a number of computers being developed for Eurofighter Typhoon,” says David Smith, software manager, of Eurofighter GmbH, the consortium managing Eurofighter’s development and production.
“The Integrity RTOS should contribute to the success of the second stage of the Eurofighter program,” says Jon Williams, European director of safety-critical business for Green Hills Software. “This evolution, which includes a move to PowerPC devices, greatly benefits from the use of the Integrity RTOS, which maximizes security and reliability and leverages the hardware memory protection facilities of the PowerPC processor. In addition, the AdaMULTI IDE provides an intuitive tool for testing during both software design and production.”
Integrity is a scalable, ROMable, and memory-protected RTOS. Leveraging the hardware memory protection facilities of the PowerPC processor’s Memory Management Unit (MMU), the RTOS maximizes security and reliability by building a firewall between the kernel and user tasks, Green Hills officials say. This prevents errant or malicious tasks from corrupting user data, the kernel, interprocess communications, device drivers, and other user tasks. In addition, the RTOS guarantees the availability of system resources like the CPU and memory to application processes, making it more secure and deterministic than conventional embedded operating systems, company officials say.
The AdaMULTI IDE is a complete, integrated set of tools for the development of embedded applications using Ada 95, C, C++, Embedded C++, and FORTRAN. It runs on Windows, Linux, and UNIX hosts and supports cross debugging to a variety of target environments. The AdaMULTI IDE contains all of the tools needed to debug and deploy major programming project including: source level debugger, project builder, event analyzer, performance profiler, run-time error checker, and nonintrusive field debugging.
Green Hills Software is also providing EADS Deutschland GmbH with INTEGRITY-178B, Green Hills Software’s ARINC 653-1 operating system, and MULTI development tools for EADS’ Mission Management Computer.
The Modular Mission Avionics Computer M2AC, now under development by EADS Defense Electronics, is a configurable, modular avionics computer intended for a variety of military airborne platforms including the new Airbus A400M military airlifter. EADS Defense Electronics, supplier of radar, avionics and electronic warfare systems, is an integrated part of the EADS Defense and Security Systems Division (DS). EADS’ M2AC will be used on the Airbus A400M for a number of applications including the Mission Management Computer.
The A400M program was launched in May 2003, when 180 A400M airlifters were ordered by seven European NATO nations: 60 for Germany, 50 for France, 27 for Spain, 25 for the U.K., 10 for Turkey, seven for Belgium, and one for Luxemburg. The A400M will begin flying in 2008 with first deliveries starting in 2009.
The number of aircraft delivered into service with the four Eurofighter partner air forces of Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain soared through 50 this summer. While all 30 Eurofighter Batch 1 aircraft and five Instrumented Production Aircraft (IPA) are already in service, 16 Batch 2 are now delivered to the air forces of Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy, bringing the total number of series production aircraft delivered to 51 at the end of June.
By industry/customer, deliveries to date include BAE Systems 15 (plus two IPA) to the Royal Air Force, EADS Germany 13 (plus one IPA) to German Luftwaffe, EADS CASA 9 (plus one IPA) to the Spanish Air Force, and Alenia 9 (plus one IPA) to the Italian Air Force.
The Batch 2 aircraft have Production System Package (PSP2) Capability with initial Defensive Aids Subsystem (DASS), Multifunctional Information and Distribution System (MIDS), initial Direct Voice Input (DVI), and initial Sensor Fusion.
With deployment of IS002 from Alenia’s facilities in Torino to 4 Stormo “Amadeo d’Aosta” at Grosseto, Italy, all for partner air forces in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom now operate series production single seaters with Batch 2 standard.
Six Batch 2 aircraft have been accepted by the customer air forces so far, bringing the total number of delivered series production aircraft to 41 (including five Instrumented Production Aircraft IPA).
Most recently the operation of Eurofighter at extremely low temperatures has been successfully evaluated and proven in Sweden. At Decimomannu, Italy, DA 3, the gun firing clearance aircraft, is completing the final demonstration of the Full Operational Clearance for the operation of this part of the weapon system.
Flight test of the new Phase 4 Standard Flight Control System Software dedicated for Block 2b has begun. Industry and government test pilots have registered enthusiastic comments: “The Phase 4 software left a very good impression overall. It was like flying a different, much more spirited and agile aircraft.” Pilots also praise the new software for air-to-air refueling, reducing workload considerably.
Production of Tranche 1 standard aircraft is under way with the 100th center fuselage and right wing section already delivered. Production for Tranche 2 aircraft began last year with production of the first frames for the center fuselage.
For more information on Green Hills Software visit www.ghs.com. For more on the Eurofighter go online at www.eurofighter.com.
