Wind River Blog Network

Northrop Grumman X-47B UCAS-D Running on Wind River VxWorks Catapults from Aircraft Carrier

By Chip Downing

Today, the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned aircraft achieved a successful catapult launch from the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush carrier, the first of its kind in aviation history.  This marks a very proud day for Wind River knowing that our VxWorks real-time operating system is a key technology for this aircraft, developed as part of the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program.

Northrop Grumman's X-47B is a tailless, strike fighter-sized unmanned aircraft currently under development for carrier operations. VxWorks serves as the foundation for the Common Core System, the backbone of UCAS-D computers, networks, and interfacing electronics on the X-47B. Built on VxWorks, Northrop Grumman engineers were able to rapidly create, deploy and maintain the safety-critical control system. 

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Securing Critical Infrastructure with MILS

By Paul Chen

On February 12, the White House released the Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21), Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. The DHS website describes PPD-21 as “advancing a national policy to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure.” Sixteen different critical infrastructure sectors are identified, including: Chemical, Communications, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare and Public Health, Food and Agriculture, Nuclear Reactors, Transportation, and Water and Wastewater Systems.

On the same day PPD-21 was released, President Obama also signed Executive Order 13636 for “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” The Executive Order directs NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to develop a framework for “reducing cyber risks to critical infrastructure,” for which they have issued an RFI and plan a workshop in late May.

And on March 26, the BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, the German Federal Office for Information Security) published the Protection Profile for the Gateway of a Smart Metering System. Such devices will securely collect, process, and store information from smart meters, adding security to smart electricity distribution grids. The protection profile notes that the threat from a remote cyberattack is much higher than that from a local physical attack, since the attacker in network has the potential to compromise not just one, but many components of the infrastructure, or even the corresponding grid.

These developments highlight the focus on improving critical infrastructure security as attacks from cyber-terrorism have increased over the last decade and, alarmingly, in the past year on power, water, and nuclear systems. A recent report states that, indeed, most cyber-attacks now target critical infrastructure, moving “away from hacking and financially motivated crime” to attacks to “deny, disrupt, and destroy” service. For most of us, even the most destructive cyber-attacks like Stuxnet are fairly remote and don’t impact us; but if critical infrastructure services are denied, disrupted, or destroyed, cyber-attacks could become devastatingly personal.

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Avionics Europe 2013 Conference

By Paul Parkinson

Last week I attended the Avionics Europe 2013 conference, which was held in Munich for the last time perhaps (as it is moving to Abu Dhabi in 2014).

The theme of this year's conference was 'Tackling the Challenges in Avionics: Single Sky Many Platforms,' which continued to focus on the growth in air traffic across Europe and challenges arising for air traffic management and navigation. However, rather than continuing to focus on the regulatory challenges as in 2012 (which I have discussed previously), there was a shift in emphasis towards the implementation of technologies such as SESAR.

One of the keynote speakers, Captain Sascha Unterbarnscheidt, A320 Captain and Director Operations Support, Lufthansa Germany made some very interesting observations in his address 'Single European Sky - Delivery to Daily Operations.' In particular, how the fragmented European air space (compared to the United States), led to ATM inefficiencies in 2011 resulting in 17.9m minutes of ATM delays, 8.1m tonnes of wasted CO2, and increased costs of around 5billion Euros (with the effect on passengers of delayed flights, longer flight times, wasted fuel and increased noise). He then went on to explain how the increased levels of automation and productivity through SESAR would result in increased capacity, reduced costs and lower accident rates.

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The Advent of Multi-core MILS

By Paul Parkinson

It has been a rather long time since my previous blog post. I intended to post a blog before the holidays regarding our partner Curtiss-Wright's announcement about VxWorks MILS support on the VPX6-187, but I simply ran out of time! So here it is as my first blog post of 2013.

The Curtiss-Wright new release was actually quite a game changer. To the casual reader, it may just appear to be about the release of another board support package (BSP) on a leading-edge COTS processor card, but the fact that this BSP supports multi-core for a MILS architecture is what makes this announcement so significant.

When the MILS software architecture was proposed in 1984 by the computer scientist Dr. John Rushby, microprocessors at the time were inherently single-core, and computing performance advances were being driven by clock speed increases and die size, at a rate following Moore's Law.

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MSL: How Big Is It?

By Mike Deliman

I’ve been asked here and there “Just how big is this MSL thing?”

It’s a question I can give several answers to, depending on what the asker means.  In physical terms, you could ride on it.  Here is a good example…in this photo of a worker and MSL, you can see the cruise shell is large enough to house a small couch with more than one person sitting on it.  The rover itself is quite large, I’d imagine good comparisons would be something on the order of a ride-on tractor-mower. 

But that isn’t really the only answer.  In scientific terms, this is huge.  This rover is a well-equipped geological laboratory on wheels.  It carries equipment every high-school and university would be proud to have available.  Laser spectrometer, chemical analyzers, close-up and long-distance cameras, not to mention an advanced autonomous robot running it all.  Any of these tools would be excellent for investigating or teaching/learning about the earth.

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All Your Mars are Belong to US!

By Mike Deliman

It's time to celebrate. We have returned to Mars with the most complex roving robotic laboratory ever sent to another planet. We have demonstrated and proved the Sky Crane concept, which opens doors onto other worlds that we have never had before. We can successfully deliver 1 metric ton to the surface of Mars.

This is an achievement beyond words. A new day is dawning on Mars, a day marked with the ability to achieve incredible scientific goals. A team of over 7000 individuals made this happen. A true testament to humankind. None of these contributors could have done this without the support of their families and significant others.  And I am extremely proud to work for Wind River, a company whose technology helped make all of this possible.

I'm a California boy. It takes someone very special to have this kind of draw, to pull me to Indiana.  Here we are.  It’s late.  This is a historic evening.

All times in Central time (Valparaiso, Indiana):

10:30pm - we tuned in to the press transmissions on both NASA-TV and USTREAM on JPL channel 3. We spent the next several hours toggling between the audio feeds, glued to the monitor.

10:40 pm - DSN ready to relay signals. EDL team is getting setup. EDL "tone screens" were being finalized. Chatter in the flight control room was muted.

10:52 pm - Mars View from MSL is about 20 degrees - she's getting close.

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Complexity

By Mike Deliman

This afternoon I watched the press conferences for Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” that were hosted by NASA/JPL from Pasadena, Ca.  These conferences were broadcast over NASA-TV, both on the cable/satellite channels and over the web.  If you haven’t seen the Seven Minutes Video I encourage you to watch it.

Various scientists, directors and managers of the project discussed various aspects of the mission, including discussing how the craft does what it’s designed to.  The biggest message I carry away from today’s two conferences is “Complexity”.  This is by far the most complex robotic probe ever launched to space, perhaps the most complex robotic probe mission ever.

If you watch the video, you will notice that during the landing, the probe plummets through the atmosphere like a well-guided rock.  This is literally what it is doing – falling like a rock that knows how to keep itself upright.  It manages to do this by using guidance rockets, a heat shield with a “just right” shape, and weights that help keep one side tilted slightly towards the ground.  While it’s in this configuration, the guidance rockets make minute adjustments as needed, keeping the probe on course.  This precision guided entry is a large part of how Curiosity is able to make the landing ellipse small.  This whole phase is a series of fantastic engineering achievements.  It is tied in history to the Apollo reentry methods, where we brought astronauts back to Earth, safely.

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Seven Minutes

By Mike Deliman

This week, NASA hosted the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists in charge of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, for a pre-landing press conference.  The landing sequences, called “ED&L” – Entry, Descent, and Landing – are the most action packed and critical operations other than the initial launch.  Pete Theisinger has described the EDL sequence as “7 minutes of terror.”

This stage of exploration is similar to that of other landers NASA has sent – Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rovers, and Mars Polar Lander all survived their landings on the red planet after their 7 minutes of EDL terror.  It was these experiences that led Pete to this description.

The NASA/JPL press conference was about an hour long, and packed full of information.  The long and short of it is that we have made giant strides in advancing the technology of placing payloads on the surface of Mars, and the science returned so far has drastically changed our understanding of the red planet, and of planetary evolution in general.

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The New FACE of Avionics

By Chip Downing

Earlier this year, Wind River announced its support of the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard, which hopes to resolve two fundamental problems with military procurements.

First, current aviation systems are typically developed for a unique set of requirements by a single vendor for a single aircraft, resulting in limited portability of software components, increased costs, and creating barriers to competition within and across airborne systems.

Second, the military aviation community has not created standardized architectural and software interface standards to sufficiently enable portability of software components across DoD aviation systems.  Commercial aerospace suppliers have standardized on open common core platforms based upon ARINC 653, which is a standard API for integrated modular avionics (IMA), but this has simply not occurred in military avionics systems.

The FACE technical standard will create an open, modular, multi-vendor software environment enabling portability and reuse of software components across multiple programs and platforms.  Combining this technical standard with a the FACE Business Guide will expand the selection options for military software components, reduce up-front procurement costs, reduce system integration cost and risk, and reduce upgrade and technical refresh costs.

To read the full blog post visit Military Embedded Systems

Securing Android for the Battle Space

By Tim Skutt

Armed conflict has radically changed.  Remotely operated unmanned vehicles and cyber warfare highlight this change.  Combatants can launch an attack anywhere from a few hundred meters away to half a world away with the same devastating results.  One of the fascinating – and scary – parts of this change is that the trigger firing the weapon has become the Enter key on a keyboard or a finger press on a touchscreen.

Essentially, the geography of the battlefield now includes the mobile devices we carry – whether we carry them into the physical front lines being fought with kinetic weapons, or the virtual front lines that extend to our corporate or even home offices. 

Global defense organizations recognize the value of commercial smart phone and tablet capability for deployment to soldiers in the battlefield, wherever that battlefield may be. The challenge of securing the commercial capability and mobile platform for warfighter use requires end-to-end system threat assessment and incorporating embedded device strategies to minimize cyber-attacks and maintain mission-critical communications.

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Getting Code Coverage with LDRA Tools on Simics

By Jakob Engblom

A system development tool like Simics is rarely used completely on its own. Simics is usually brought in by companies and development teams who are already using a variety of tools and expect to keep doing so along with Simics. Also, Simics by itself cannot reasonably be expected to solve all problems for all people. Instead, we need to connect Simics with outside tools to provide an integrated solution.

In this blog post, Jay Thomas of LDRA and I will discuss one concrete example of such a tool integration. In particular, how Simics can be used together with the code coverage and certification tools from LDRA to perform code analysis on safety-critical software in a way that is more efficient than with most hardware platforms.

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Wind River and Android – 5 great years, with many more to come

By Dan Noal

It was 5 years ago this week that I got an email from our CEO who had just met with Andy Rubin and Rich Miner at the Googleplex. Google had invited us to talk privately and confidentially about what would become Android.  Other companies were already on board, and they asked us to join the small group of companies collaborating with them as part of the nascent Open Handset Alliance. They talked big about disrupting the entire mobile phone ecosystem and solving the fragmentation problem with so many competing Linux based phone stacks emerging at that time. They painted a vision where open source Android would dominate the mobile phone space and migrate to adjacent markets.  We knew that they had credibility from Danger, we knew that Google had tremendous momentum and power they could leverage.  We discussed it internally, and without much debate we replied “where do we sign?” and started to roll up our sleeves. 

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What is the Real Impact of DO-178C and ED-12C?

By Joe Wlad

DO-178C and ED-12C are now released.  What does this mean for Wind River and its customers?

Now that RCTA DO-178 and its European equivalent, EUROCAE ED-12, have been updated after nearly twenty years, many are wondering, what is the impact to Wind River and our customers?  We’ve provided our customers with products and services based on DO-178B and ED-12B guidelines for over 10 years and have deployed certified VxWorks solutions on over 250 aircraft programs.  With the arrival of DO-178C and ED-12C it’s really business as usual for Wind River and we will incrementally adopt the standard in our future certification evidence offerings. Yes, the new release of DO-178 and ED-12 compel many to ask questions about how we comply, what our roadmap for approval is, and how we plan to support our customers now and in the future.

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Avionics Europe 2012 Report

By Paul Parkinson

I've just got back from the Avionics Europe 2012 conference and exhibition which was held in Munich.

The theme of this year's conference was 'Common Sky: Operating in One Air Space' focussing on the growth in air traffic across Europe, the challenges arising for air traffic management and navigation, and the development of SESAR air traffic management technologies.

I was keen to hear to how changes to the high-level policies would drive regulatory changes and drive technology requirements.

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Avionics 2012 Conference

By Paul Parkinson

It's been a long time since my previous blog, as unfortunately I've been engrossed in a number of projects!

However, I have just got time to mention that I'm really looking forward to the Avionics Europe conference in Munich on 21-22 March. The conference programme is pretty packed, covering cockpit avionics and technologies for civil and military aircraft; and aircraft, spacecraft and UAV sensor payloads, diagnostics and certification.

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VxWorks Cert Now Supports ARM!

By Alex Wilson

Aerospace and defense has relied on rugged embedded vehicle mounted computers for many years, but as devices become more mobile, and with increased demand to reduce SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power), ARM-based computers become an interesting alternative.  Added to that is the wealth of functionality available in ARM devices that make it a good choice, not only to reduce SWaP in the core CPU, but to reduce overall chipset sizes to a single SoC.

If we look at an example of an ARM-based device, such as the TI OMAP3530, this is a perfect device with which to build a software defined radio for example. It has a high performance, low powered Cortex A8 Core, with numerous IO devices to help connectivity and display.  Designed as a mobile device, for example, it supports Android -- and the OMAP3530 is also well suited to other areas of A&D such as soldier mounted systems, or remote sensors.

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Security Needed Everywhere!

By Alex Wilson

It's been a busy couple of months at Wind River with conferences and seminars as we lead up to year end.  One key theme at the various events I have been to is that of the increased need for cyber-security, a theme that is becoming important in all areas of embedded computing.

The subject first came up in Toulouse at the SAE Aerotech conference.  I was there co-hosting a session with Airbus on use of multicore technology in safety certified systems, with a great presentation by our own Joachim Hampp, and also to present a paper on our VxWorks 653 solution as a guest of BARCO.  Apart from some very interesting sessions on IMA, Unmanned Vehicles, and safety certification, the other critical area was an update on cyber-security with presentations from Airbus, Boeing and government.

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Secure Mobility Message Resonates at MILCOM 2011

By Chip Downing

MILCOM 2011 last week in Baltimore, MD was not only educational, but it was a watershed event.   Last year, it was a “coming out” party for custom Android devices; this year however, was the year where many companies are now using COTS hardware and software to their fullest extent, along the entire supply chain, from core to edge and user devices.   I believe this COTS adoption is driven by two powerful forces – the exploding capabilities of commercial tablet devices, and global military budget pressures.

The vastly increasing power and capability of commercially available mobile communications devices is simply amazing. Just a few years ago, almost everything in this military communications space was purpose built, and most commercial products were simply inadequate to address the rugged and complex system demands of military communications systems.   As seen at MILCOM 2011, this has officially changed -- COTS end-to-end communications domains rule.

So if all of these MILCOM vendors are not making customized hardware and software, what are they doing?   Wind River had over 500 people visit its booth at MILCOM this year, and most of the discussions I had with both suppliers and end users at the show were about increasing device security and leveraging high volume COTS components in demanding deployment scenarios.

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Unmanned Systems: More Reports of Security Vulnerabilities

By Joe Wlad

By now, you’ve likely heard the latest report of security holes in unmanned ground control systems. This time, a key-logging virus has been found on one or more hard drives at the Nevada operations center for the Predator and Reaper unmanned vehicles. While the investigation is ongoing and impact of the virus is determined, the real concern is just how vulnerable are these systems and what might happen next? This is not the first time security gaps have been uncovered in unmanned vehicles. In 2009, Iraqi insurgents were able to intercept unencrypted video feeds from operational Predator UAVs using inexpensive software downloaded from the Internet.

People in the public and private sector are expressing deep concern over how things like this can happen and to how address these problems. As for the “how we got here” question, it’s relatively simple to answer. Essentially, the unmanned air vehicle has been a victim of its own success. Many of these programs, Global Hawk, Predator and others were never designed to be deployed in operational environments. In fact, the DoD in many cases, sought to build these vehicles as prototypes or proof-of-concepts. When the programs were awarded, the diligent contractors for these vehicles used the best of commercial technology to demonstrate the capabilities. The hope was that successful demonstrations would lead to production contracts where the systems could be designed to meet specific security and safety requirements.

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Boeing 787: The long certification journey comes to an end

By Joe Wlad

Today, Boeing delivered its first 787 aircraft to All Nippon Airways (ANA) marking a huge technical, moral and financial achievement. Lorraine Bolsinger, president and CEO, GE Aviation Systems, commented in today’s news release: “This is an opportunity for 787 partners to celebrate their role in bringing the 787 Dreamliner to ANA and the world.” We at Wind River are immensely proud to be part of the supplier team on the Boeing 787 program and our VxWorks 653 operating system environment has enabled Boeing to reduce size, weight and power of the avionics platform thereby reducing aircraft operating costs for its customers.

Certification of the Boeing 787 has been a long road. While some people have focused on the challenges surrounding production and certification delays of the Boeing 787, it’s important to understand how revolutionary this airplane really is. The 787 is the most fuel efficient, technically advanced aircraft ever certified. Given how much new technology is built into the 787, it’s understandable that the certification process took longer than some had hoped. Key attributes of the 787 include a mostly composite aircraft structure (replacing many aluminum parts), elimination of pneumatics to power aircraft systems, a highly efficient wing design and Integrated Modular Avionics which reduce weight and enable reusability of software, among others.

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Linux, Common Criteria and OS Protection Profiles

By Paul Parkinson

In 2011, computer and network security news stories, which were previously the preserve of specialist journals and blogs, have become commonplace in the mainstream media. There are now many different types of threat, which are sometimes categorised into hacktivist, e-crime and most recently, advanced persistent threats (APT). Whilst some of these attacks have exploited zero day vulnerabilities, many of these attacks have simply taken advantage of the fact that systems have not been configured securely for their deployment environment.

To use an easy–to-understand analogy, consider a wireless router. This device will generally be shipped from the factory in the most flexible, open communication configuration, which will have many or all of the security options disabled. This will be fine if the wireless router is intended to be used as a free public Wi-Fi access point (e.g., cyber cafe), but not for a private business or home office if you want to prevent drive-by wireless hacks).  In these cases, wireless encryption such as WPA2 will need to be enabled for the router and clients, and access may even need to be restricted to specific clients via MAC addresses, etc.

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Embedded Virtualization to Underpin Next Generation Network-Centric Operations

By Chip Downing

“Embedded virtualization” is a technology that is rapidly proliferating in global defense systems that deliver critical data to warfighters.  Embedded virtualization is typically instantiated in small layer of software called a hypervisor that controls all activities and functions on a microprocessor deployed in a military control and communications equipment.

These hypervisors can be foundations for hosting a wide range of complex, dynamic applications for network-centric operations (NCO), electronic warfare (EW) and spectrum planning/electronic warfare battle management (EWBM) systems. Hypervisors enable the migration of existing capabilities from legacy NCO programs onto next generation platforms, enabling wider integration and preserving program investment.  

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Unmanned Systems No Longer Require Human, or Canine, Participation

By Joe Wlad

Forty-plus years ago, when automatic pilots were first used to perform automatic landings of large aircraft, there was a joke that was circulated among pilots everywhere. Future aircraft would be manned only by a single pilot and a dog. The pilot’s job would be to feed the dog. The dog’s job would be to bite the pilot if she or he touched anything. Today, we’ve advanced well beyond that presageful joke, and airborne systems can now operate autonomously without human, or canine, participation.

One key event taking place this week, that Wind River is exhibiting at, is the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) North America, which showcases the latest trends and technologies in unmanned systems. This event consistently attracts a lot of attention and participation. In fact, this year’s show in Washington, DC is likely to have record participation, which is indicative of the trends we’re seeing in automated and unmanned systems designs.

Ever since hobbyists have demonstrated the ability to control model-sized aircraft using radio signals, engineers conceived of controlling larger-scale unmanned aircraft for both military and civilian purposes. A number of the research efforts for unmanned aircraft over the past two decades have now evolved into larger rate production, and in some cases, deployment in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones. While this is a tribute to the engineers and architects of these designs, one negative consequence of this success is that we now have many unmanned systems that cannot easily coexist with manned aircraft because lack of standards and regulatory requirements for unmanned vehicles. Moreover, the systems in use today are not interoperable. In other words, each unmanned air vehicle is tied to a unique ground station which increases the cost of design and certification.

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Fish Finders, Embedded Linux and Graphics

By Paul Anderson 

Here I am up at rustic cabin in Northern Wisconsin enjoying some time off the grid. I feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson getting in touch with nature, and exploring Transcendentalism, except for one minor detail: I have a wireless connection. Emerson was quoted as saying “Nature hates calculators,” and I’m not sure what he would think about the billions of connected devices scattered across the landscape. Not to worry, I’ll be back unplugged soon enough and enjoying some quality time in the “digital free zone.”

I tried my hand at some fishing this week on the little lake we are on. Even though I’m a gadget person in general, I am a very low tech fisherman. With the help of my brother in law, my kids and I just fished the old fashioned way, with a pole, hook, bobber, and worm. It didn’t take long to find the fish, or for the fish to find us. However, there are plenty of high tech anglers out there that use everything from advanced weather forecast maps, fish finders, and even underwater cameras. I find all that technology interferes with the peace of mind that I am looking for when doing things like fishing, but perhaps that is because I am fully immersed in technology as a career.

Modern high end fish finders, GPS units, and other electronics equipment used in the outdoors have become much more sophisticated. The users of deeply embedded devices have come to expect a graphical user interface, low power consumption, and reliability. A similar trend can be found across a spectrum of deeply embedded devices, including industrial control panels, medical equipment, military applications, and of course, consumer equipment.

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Wind River Named "Transformational"

By Ido Sarig

Voke, Inc. has just released its annual “Market Mover Array Report on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)," and we’re very pleased to see that Wind River’s Device Lifecycle Management solutions were favorably reviewed, and ranked as  “Transformational” - the highest category, reserved for vendors that are changing the tone and direction of the market! 

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In embedded systems, a lifetime is a long time

By Bill Graham

The recent news about the demise of the Mars Rover Spirit (Mike Deliman blogged about this last week) and comments about how it succeeded its mission many times over, got me thinking about just how long product lifetimes are for embedded products (see "End of Mars mission: Way beyond warranty" by Bob McDonald at the CBC). In many industries using embedded software to control devices, the expected lifespan is decades which contrasts sharply to consumer devices where either software is upgraded constantly or we dispose of the device in a few years. On the other hand, embedded systems often exceed originally planned lifespans many times over. Case in point is the Mars Rover program, where Spirit operated six years beyond its original mission plan and rover Opportunity continues operation, surviving a harrowing journey and landing and a harsh Martian environment for so many years.

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IDEF 2011

By Paul Parkinson

Recently, I attended the IDEF 2011 defence trade show in Instanbul as part of the Wind River team exhibiting on the Tektronik (Turkish distributor) stand.

Our partner, Curtiss-Wright, who were also exhibiting at the event, had kindly lent me a VPX chassis and VPX6-185 board, which I used to demonstrate a Cross-Domain Solution (CDS) demo running on VxWorks MILS. The demo filters packets of data between black and red networks based on the security classification of the data, and uses multiple partitions to implement sender and receiver on different interfaces.

The demo currently uses a simple encryption algorithm for data passed over the black network (which wouldn't present much of a challenge to GCHQ/CESG or NSA),  so I decided to replace it with a stronger encryption algorithm which is more appropriate for real world systems. I initially considered using an open source implementation of AES-256, but then I remembered the export controls on 256-bit AES, so I decided to use a public domain implementation of the Russian GOST 28147-89 (which also uses a 256-bit keys).

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And Then There Was One

By Mike Deliman

NASA concludes attempts to contact Mars Rover 'Spirit'

Last night the news of Spirit's mission coming to a close hit my mailbox.

For me, her journey started about eleven years ago.  A call from JPL came to my office phone, it was Glenn.  "Mike, we're putting the team back together, we're going back to Mars."

Those words were like music to my ears.  At the time, when completing the Mars Pathfinder project the thought occurred..."this, then, is the pinnacle of my career, the point  where I can mark as the top of my achievements."  This call changed all of that. There were other projects along the way, Gravity-Probe B and others, but Pathfinder had been fantastic!

Over 3 long years we worked as a team, cogs in a bigger machine making something incredible.  We all put in long hours, working all day on our mission, dreaming at night of what we were working on (it's a human thing).  They began to take on personalities of their own, MER-A being feisty as the "older twin", MER-B cooperating and living the charmed life of the youngest child.  Then came the competition where the children gave our babies their names - Spirit and  Opportunity.  These seemed to be very fitting of our offspring, Spirit surely was full of fitfulness, where as Opportunity was always moving forward.

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Embedded is cool (and getting even cooler)

By Paul Anderson

When people ask me what I do, I never know how to answer the question. Most people state their occupation. But, does that define what we do? I usually respond with something cheeky like “metabolize,” or “provide for those around me” or “go running or fly airplanes any chance I get.” But, usually people want to know what you do for a living. I usually get stumped when they ask that particular question.

I asked my youngest child what he thought I did for a living. He said “play with computers all day,” which is not entirely inaccurate. I asked my oldest, and he said “fly airplanes” (again, I do fly a lot of airplanes, but unfortunately I spend most of my time as a passenger rather than a pilot). My pets would say my entire existence is dedicated to providing them food and entertainment (obviously they have figured something out). My wife would say that I type on the computer, talk on the phone, go to meetings, and spend way too much time in airplanes and at hotels. Although accurate, it doesn’t get at the core of what I do.

When I try to explain to people what I do in any detail, after a minute or so I see their eyes glaze over. I have taken to just saying “I’m in the software business.” I can usually get away with that, but sometime people actually want to know more.

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Getting Started with OpenSAF

By Glenn Seiler

Usage of OpenSAF is growing exponentially. The number of companies I hear from that are evaluating or considering using OpenSAF grows every month. A common trend that I see more and more often is that someone in an R&D capacity or someone charged with creating a prototype downloads OpenSAF from opensaf.org and begins working with it, to acquaint them with the technology.  For example, if you are a Wind River Linux user, you can download a pristine version of OpenSAF software directly from the Wind River Developers Network that has been pre-validated and packaged to build with Wind River’s Linux Distribution Assembly Tool (LDAT).  The version of OpenSAF you can download from Wind River Developer Network is exactly the same as the current version of OpenSAF at devel.opensaf.org, except it has been put into a ‘layer’ that is recognized and used by Wind River’s build environment. This can save significant time and effort for companies that want to do a quick analysis or build of OpenSAF.

The most common method for getting support or help for OpenSAF projects is by utilizing “community support.” The Wind River Developer Network is a great place to look for answers or to post a question. This is where members of Wind River’s OpenSAF and Linux engineering community can help. In addition, the OpenSAF project has many helpful documents and mailing lists that can provide help.  There are many mailing lists that you should consider subscribing to, including a developers mailing list that is used by many of the actual developers contributing code to the OpenSAF project.

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