SYSTEMS

A the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC), LynuxWorks and Verari Systems Software today announced they have collaborated to deliver an open-standards based, compute-intensive, low-cost, hard real-time processing solution for the military's advanced imaging applications, including RADAR and SONAR. The combination of LynuxWorks' LynxOS RTOS (real-time operating system) with Verari's VSI/Pro vector, signal and image-processing libraries and MPI/Pro (Message Passing Interface) middleware, will enable customers to leverage the power of cluster processing -- in real-time -- on a broad range of small form-factor embedded COTS hardware, including VME bus, ATCA, CPCI and PC servers. In the past, the compute intensive power needed for advanced military sensor and imaging applications required large footprint, rack-mounted systems. With the combined LynuxWorks and Verari solution, the compute-power per cubic inch increases dramatically -- meaning that supercomputer power can now be achieved using COTS board or system-level products. "The fact that LynxOS has a native POSIX programming interface and uses an open industry standard compiler tool chain made it quite easy for us to support," said Brian Chase, Verari's VSI/Pro product manager. "The primary advantage of using a deterministic, hard real-time RTOS, such as LynxOS, is that it allows a cluster of processors to compute data in-step with each other and not have to wait on worst-case delays that would otherwise occur with desktop OSs. Furthermore, all of these technologies are readily embedded on COTS platforms which enable developers of compute-intensive applications to readily use Verari's supercomputer technologies for real-time embedded computing." "The MPI/Pro middleware and VSI/Pro libraries are an ideal complement to LynxOS real-time operating system," said Dr. Inder Singh, CEO and chairman of LynuxWorks. "These products allow our customers to employ what are essentially super-computer technologies on embedded VME cards, ATCA or on IBM server clusters." VSI/Pro is a highly optimized library of scalar, vector, linear algebra, matrix, and signal processing functions (e.g., FFT, Window, Filter, and Convolution) and is fully compliant with the open system VSIPL (Vector, Signal, and Image Processing Library) standard as defined by the VSIPL Forum. MPI/Pro is the leading commercial MPI middleware product and outperforms freeware MPI versions. Communications between the parallel processors is channeled through an MPI (Message-Passing Interface) standard conformant library. The LynxOS RTOS is an open, hard real-time operating system which allows developers to confidently build products and meet the most stringent requirements for real-time mission-critical applications.