AgustaWestland's Safety-Critical Helicopter Touch Screen Unit Development with Wind River
Technology Category
- Robots - Robot Operating Systems
- Sensors - Haptic Sensors
Applicable Industries
- Marine & Shipping
- National Security & Defense
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Services
- System Integration
The Customer
AgustaWestland
About The Customer
AgustaWestland is a leading helicopter manufacturer, known for its innovative and high-quality products. The company is committed to continually improving its offerings to meet the evolving needs of its customers, which include military organizations. For this particular project, AgustaWestland was tasked with upgrading a military helicopter, requiring the development of a new safety-critical avionics display. The company sought to adopt an innovative approach that would not only meet the current needs but also allow for future upgrades using a standards-based approach.
The Challenge
AgustaWestland, a leading helicopter manufacturer, was faced with the challenge of developing a new safety-critical avionics display for a military helicopter upgrade program. The military helicopter had previously used avionics display control units within the cockpit and cabin of the aircraft. However, the new project aimed to enable the implementation of additional functionality to meet new operational requirements. The challenge was to adopt an innovative approach that would not only meet the current needs but also allow for future upgrades using a standards-based approach. The traditional turnkey black-box approach used by traditional suppliers was not suitable for this project due to its lack of flexibility and adaptability to changing requirements.
The Solution
To address this challenge, AgustaWestland turned to Wind River's VxWorks 653, a real-time operating system that implements ARINC 653 partitioning of applications. This state-of-the-art touch screen LCD display was integrated with the VxWorks 653 system, providing an open, extensible architecture. This enabled AgustaWestland to configure the display to ARINC 661 graphics-specific requirements and to integrate its applications into the display system using a modular approach. This solution differed significantly from the traditional turnkey black-box approach, offering more flexibility and adaptability. The use of VxWorks 653 provided an open foundation for modular and incremental certification, allowing AgustaWestland to exploit these capabilities in subsequent upgrades and future Touch Screen Unit (TSU) variants.
Operational Impact
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