04 April 2007: LynuxWorks an USA based provider of embedded software, announced that it has been selected to provide the real-time operating system (RTOS) for the European Space Agency’s Galileo project, a civilian-controlled global navigation system.
The European Galileo global navigation satellite system is designed to provide higher degree of accuracy and will be compatible with the world’s other two positioning systems, GPS and Russia’s GLONASS. Galileo will be used for location-based services, as well as in situations where safety is critical, such as running trains and landing airplanes, and in search and rescue operations.
LynxOS-178 will be used in the critical Galileo Mission Segments (GMS), which lies at the heart of the system. The GMS is a network of Earth-based stations that monitor signals from the satellites and transmit navigation data to the satellites. LynxOS-178 offers openness in development of platforms for safety-critical systems, offering support for both Pentium and PowerPC processors, both of which will be used in the overall Galileo project.
LynxOS-178 is designed specifically to fulfill the stringent needs of multithread and multiprocess applications in safety-critical real-time systems. The military and aerospace industry mandates rigorous testing and certification for safety-critical computing. In the United States and Europe these are expressed in the RTCA/DO-178B, RTCA/DO-278 and EUROCAE ED-12B guidance documents for the production of software for airborne and ground systems.
LynxOS-178 provides a low-risk path to software certification for developers of software for safety-critical airborne and ground systems. The availability of LynxOS-178 allows developers to leverage software and artifacts that have been certified previously.
