Page 117 - DCAP608_REAL TIME SYSTEMS

Real Time Systems

Notes helicopters proved costly and inefficient. Because VxWorks® was already being used in
the IDM, porting FBCB2 to VxWorks seemed a logical approach. However, after 3 years
attempting without success to port to VxWorks, the original project team cut its losses and
turned to LynuxWorks’ LynxOS® real-time operating system (RTOS).
LynuxWorks’ LynxOS blends deterministic performance, reliability, openness, and
scalability with patented technology for real-time event handling, and also provides
complete UNIX® compatibility. The complete RTOS package proved particularly attractive
to ICI. “LynxOS® provided us the full UNIX capability we needed in order to meet the
Army’s requirements,” explained Woodward. “VxWorks does not feature all of the UNIX
application programming interfaces; it’s UNIX-like, but does not provide the true UNIX
qualifications necessary to accommodate Army-standard applications. We wanted
something that would fit with what we already have yet allowed us to proceed to integrate
our new technology.”

LynxOS meets strict POSIX® conformance tests, plus the UNIX compatibility making its
application interfaces compatible with Linux. To be conformant to the POSIX standard, a
hardware platform and operating system must be certified as such. Many operating systems
like VxWorks, however, only implement portions of POSIX while still claiming POSIX
compliance. This represented a significant reason why efforts to port to VxWorks ultimately
failed—it is not a true POSIX-conformant operating system.
Innovative Concepts and the Army became convinced that moving forward with LynxOS
signified the best solution. “We knew it would not be difficult to port the FBCB2 code to
LynxOS, and it was not. In fact, in just six short months, the port succeeded. We received
our first version of EBC and the initial testing was favourable. LynuxWorks went beyond
the call of duty to ensure that we achieved our goals, and provided professional, top-level
expertise all along the way,” said Woodward.
A new standard
As a result of its collaboration with LynuxWorks and the overwhelming success of LynxOS,
ICI has shifted its software baseline from VxWorks to LynxOS to support the development
and deployment of the Army’s standard EBC software for its aviation unit. Moreover,
LynxOS has become the de facto standard for virtually all airborne Army communications
equipment interfacing with the Tactical Internet.

Questions:
1. What is the smarter and effective way to communicate? Explain on the basis of given
case study.

2. Describe the new standard that is used in the communications.

Source: http://www.lynuxworks.com/corporate/news/success/ici.php3
11.4 Summary

 There are many ways to handle overrun.
 A way to handle overruns is to simply abort the overrun job at the beginning of the next
frame and log the premature termination of the job.

 Another way to handle overrun is to continue to execute the offending job.
 Periodic tasks that execute in the new mode but not in the old mode are created and added
to the system.

112 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY