[Avionics Today 3-18-2015] Northrop Grumman Corp. has selected the Wind River VxWorks 653 Real Time Operating System (RTOS) to support the latest avionics mission equipment upgrade that will be integrated onto the Black Hawk UH-60V helicopter. The selection comes following the recently released update to VxWorks 653, which includes support for multi-core silicon and robust partitioning for applications that enable multilevel RTCA DO-178C certification.
Black Hawk helicopter cockpit avionics. Photo: Northrop Grumman.
The system is also ARINC 653 compliant, and will support a reduction in size, weight and power (SWAP) for the upgraded UH-60V cockpit avionics package.
“By incorporating VxWorks 653 into our mission equipment package, we have achieved a system architecture that helps protect our customers’ long term investment for multiple platforms,” said Ike Song, vice president, situational awareness systems at Northrop Grumman’s electronic systems division. “Our use of VxWorks 653 enables us to align with the FACE™ Technical Standard, achieve DO-178C certification, and consolidate our avionics technology on multi-core hardware, resulting in superior performance and lower lifecycle costs.”