Study of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) in Aviation Applications

Abstract

Commercially available real-time operating systems (RTOS) are seen as candidates for use in airborne-embedded software systems by airframe and engine manufacturers, because of the perceived cost and time savings associated with using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Software professionals have pursued the reuse model established in the hardware arena for using COTS hardware components when building a system. Hardware designs can be fabricated from subassemblies and other components. Software designers have not been as effective in establishing their own reuse for COTS software components. Nevertheless, software component reuse is still sought as a means for increasing software development productivity and reducing development costs and schedule times. This report takes a detailed look into the safety and certification issues of using a COTS RTOS in aviation applications. RTOS attributes are detailed and their safety-related properties are discussed along with considerations to address when integrating a COTS RTOS with an application in an aviation system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA409387

Entities

People

  • Jim Krodel
  • Vivek Halwan

Organizations

  • United Technologies Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • Central Processing Units
  • Computer Program Reliability
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Embedded Systems
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Object Code
  • Operating Systems
  • Reliability
  • Software Development
  • Software Development Tools
  • Software Testing
  • Stress Tests
  • Test Methods

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Software Engineering.