Aonix Releases Next-Generation Safety-Critical Platform

Aonix announced the release of ObjectAda RAVEN for Windows targeting the Wind River VxWorks 653 multi-partition RTOS for PowerPC. ObjectAda RAVEN features an enhanced safety-critical Ada runtime that communicates to the underlying RTOS through the ARINC-653 APEX interface available in the Wind River VxWorks 653 environment — enabling high execution and safety certification efficiency.

ObjectAda RAVEN is an embedded Ada development system that enables engineers to isolate and build applications for deployment in one or more VxWorks 653 execution partitions. This ability to segment code into separate execution partitions has significant impact to the cost of safety-critical certification since developers can separate the code subject to the highest levels of criticality from less-critical code and thereby separately test and scrutinize it for the appropriate level of certification. In addition, Wind River VxWorks 653 includes DO-178B Level A qualified development tools that further reduce the testing burden of updated code and modified configurations. With standard industry costs to create certification evidence starting at $45 and often creeping into the hundreds of dollars per application source line, any reduction or separation of lower-criticality code yields dramatic savings.

ObjectAda RAVEN for Windows targeting VxWorks 653/PowerPC consists of a fully compliant ACATS 2.5 Ada 95 compiler with supporting tools including a build/bind tool, library tool and debugger, and delivered with a predefined program library which is based on the Ravenscar profile subset of the full predefined language. The Ravenscar profile, adopted at the Eight International Real-Time Ada Workshop (IRTAW-8), Ravenscar UK, and subsequently made part of the Ada ’05 specification, accommodates certification requirements for high-integrity (safety-critical) real-time systems. The ObjectAda RAVEN runtime environment is certifiable to DO-178B Level-A while supporting task execution through the underlying VxWorks 653 RTOS and board support services.

“The Aonix ObjectAda RAVEN product’s integration with Wind River VxWorks 653 gives the aerospace and defense industry a very powerful platform,” noted Chip Downing, Senior A&D Industry Marketing Manager at Wind River. “The Aonix Ada runtime combined with the Wind River VxWorks 653 platform make the ObjectAda RAVEN solution highly portable and very appealing to safety-critical developers needing to deploy the latest industry standards.”

“Support for Wind River’s world-class time and space partitioned RTOS is taking Aonix to a new level in the safety-critical space,” said Gary Cato, director of strategic alliances at Aonix. “Certifying applications is expensive in both human capital investment and time to market. By providing developers with products that improve code reliability, reduce testing overhead and shorten certification cycles we help customers realize significant savings.”

Aonix ObjectAda products give developers the choice between the traditional Aonix IDE for development and the new AonixADT™ Eclipse plug-in. Developers also gain full access to the Wind River Workbench environment including Ada debug and the ability to debug across multiple languages. 

PERC Ultra SMP Ported to RedHawk Linux

Aonix announced the release of PERC Ultra SMP with support for Concurrent’s RedHawk™ real-time Linux® and associated NightStar™ advanced Linux debugging and analysis tools. PERC Ultra, Aonix’s flagship product, targets the same time-critical applications such as simulation and training, data acquisition, imaging, and process control that RedHawk currently serves.

PERC Ultra SMP, a variant of the Aonix family of deterministic and hard real-time virtual machines and Java development tools, provides new ability to execute real-time applications effectively in multi-processor and multi-core systems. The promise of faster execution enabled by multi-core systems is realized by the combination of RedHawk Linux and Ultra SMP where support for the latest Intel® and AMD™ quad-core processors and chipsets provides for more computing power in smaller, more cost-effective, energy-efficient packages than previously possible.

Aonix and Concurrent have collaborated to bring this joint solution to market in response to requirements of a leading contractor in the military sector. Ultimately the combined solution will be used in mission planning and weapon systems aboard U.S. Navy warships. Earlier versions of PERC Ultra for single processors running on RedHawk Linux were previously deployed as part of the Aegis Weapon System Open Architecture Program. It was selected to enhance the capabilities and service life of the U.S. Navy's premier surface combat system while reducing costs. Projects like these benefit from the ability to address multi-core hardware platforms that provide faster, more efficient execution of real-time applications. 

“We are very pleased that Aonix has selected Concurrent’s RedHawk to be the first Linux RTOS running PERC Ultra SMP,” said Dan Mondor, president and CEO of Concurrent. “PERC Ultra has successfully addressed the Java requirements of our most important customers. We look forward to working with Aonix to extend this capability to our customers realizing the performance benefits of multi-core systems.” 

Ultra SMP sets the CPU affinity for each Java thread to an assigned CPU or core in the RedHawk Linux system. This provides precise control over which Java threads are running and where they run in the PERC Ultra SMP virtual machine, regardless of any scheduling activities associated with Linux itself. Only the threads that the PERC Ultra SMP VM activates can be run on the Linux kernel, allowing the PERC VM to maintain strict real-time prioritization and priority inheritance within Java applications. 

As with PERC Ultra, the SMP version allows higher priority Java threads to immediately interrupt garbage collection to respond to time-critical events and subsequently resume garbage collection and lower priority Java tasks when those higher priority tasks are complete. Deployed as a highly parallel process, the garbage collector within PERC uses idle processors for garbage collection, working in tandem so that one processor can scan stack memory in search of pointers to live objects while another processor relocates previously identified live objects.

The PERC Ultra SMP Virtual Machine provides hooks into Concurrent's NightStar tools to allow user visibility into the execution of individual Java threads, just as it can for native threads running on RedHawk Linux. Java and native threads are displayed together in a synchronized view of all system activity, including system calls, interrupts, and exceptions, along with user-defined event logging. Users can monitor CPU usage, memory use, and detailed process and thread information to analyze the efficiency of their multi-threaded applications and identify ways to improve performance.

“It’s great to be able to offer the first real-time multi-core Java applications that are fully supported by a complete solution on Linux targets,” noted Gary Cato, Aonix director of marketing. “As customers continue to implement real-time Linux systems, their requirements continue to become more sophisticated and stringent and their demand for faster execution and deterministic Java behavior increases. This joint Aonix-Concurrent solution ensures that we can meet those needs.”

Aonix Enhances Ada Real-Time Tools for LynxOS RTOS

Aonix announced the release of ObjectAda for Linux hosts targeting PowerPC embedded and real-time systems running the LynuxWorks LynxOS 4.2 RTOS. With enhanced edit, build, and debug facilities, ObjectAda speeds Ada application development using Linux, the preferred environment of engineers building large and complex systems. Thanks to such time savings, ObjectAda developers can reduce time to market and development costs over less functional toolchains.

ObjectAda Real-Time for LynxOS includes an enhanced linker that dramatically reduces link time. As well, the Ada debug facility enables more efficient use of functions to step into and out of protected subprograms. Upgraded support for GDB/MI mixed-code disassembly and interspersion of disassembled code with sources is included and improved multi-language debug support for C and Ada code are also provided to speed cross language test cycles.

“Aonix has long been a premier partner,” said Joe Wlad, Director of Certification, Marketing and Services at LynuxWorks. “Many of our customers, especially in the aerospace and military segments, continue to look for ways to leverage their Ada development expertise in new projects or extend the life of their existing Ada applications with updated and improved tools. We are pleased that Aonix continues to support our most important LynxOS customers with their ObjectAda family.”

“Access to standards-based COTS products like those supplied by LynuxWorks is extremely important for our military and defense customers,” confirmed Gary Cato, Aonix director of marketing. “Aonix is committed to supporting world-class RTOS environments like LynxOS and strives to continually improve the efficiency and level of integration between our products. Our combined technologies deliver a powerful toolset to developers.”

Aonix PERC Ultra Supports Latest VxWorks Release

Aonix announces the release of PERC Ultra 5.1 cross development and target support on Wind River’s VxWorks 6.6 real-time operating system and Wind River Workbench development suite. With more than one million field systems in markets such as aerospace, defense, telecommunications, industrial control and robotics, PERC Ultra well suits the broad real-time market leadership of VxWorks. These joint solutions will enable developers to take advantage of Java language capabilities while ensuring that critical deterministic behavior requirements can still be met.

Boasting the largest number of deployments for any commercial real-time virtual machine, PERC Ultra has proven itself as an embedded virtual machine that is scalable, manageable, reliable and secure. In addition to separating it from its competitors, these characteristics make it ideal for VxWorks developers who primarily focus on the safety- and mission-critical space. This version of PERC Ultra allows the PERC Virtual Machine to run as a real-time process, protecting Java applications from being corrupted by any errant C applications running on the same system. PERC Ultra also takes advantage of Wind River Advanced Networking Technologies, new with this port to VxWorks 6.6.

Notably, PERC Ultra’s port to VxWorks complements an earlier port of Aonix’s PERC Pico, a low-level, resource-constrained virtual machine for deeply embedded hard real-time applications and components. For the first time, Wind River developers can design the same Java language advantages of portability, scalability and modularity into applications from top to bottom, thereby streamlining application development, debugging and ongoing program maintenance.

”Most of our customers develop complex mission- and safety-critical systems,” noted Rob Hoffman, vice president and general manager for Aerospace and Defense at Wind River. ”Prior to Aonix’s PERC family, Java technologies were unable to address these needs effectively or efficiently. Our customers are looking forward to extending their Java applications through to the device-driver level to maximize efficiency and to gain the additional portability such an extension ensures.”

"PERC Ultra and VxWorks have together provided world-class tools and execution environments for a number of years," noted Gary Cato, Aonix director of marketing. "Wind River’s customers have stringent applications requirements. We are proud of the fact that our combined solutions have met their criteria."