Secure virtualised GPU runs multiple apps for F-35 cockpit display
Lynx Software Technologies has partnered with Core Avionics & Industrial to support the development of the next generation panoramic cockpit display electronic unit (PCD-EU) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter plane, part of the Technology Refresh 3 (TR3) modernisation program being led by Lockheed Martin.
Lynx and CoreAVI are supplying an integrated Lynx MOSA.ic framework and CoreAVI’s safety critical ArgusCore SC OpenGL SC graphic drivers, HyperCore GPU virtualisation manager and the EGL_EXT_Compositor FACE-aligned multi-windowing application programming interface (API).
Lynx supplies the secure partitioning of safety critical and non-safety critical applications on the same processor and CoreAVI technology manages the graphics display and sharing of GPU resources across the multiple guest OS in a mixed criticality environment. The result, says Dan Joncas, chief sales and marketing officer at CoreAVI is “a complete safety certifiable stack based on open architecture and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology”.
The PCD-EU is the processing unit for the panoramic head-down display in the jet’s cockpit. It features a special temperature screened version of a discrete AMD GPU that is available from CoreAVI. The system deploys multiple independent applications in secure partitions running on multiple separate displays using ArgusCore SC graphics drivers. Lynx MOSA.ic securely partitions the AMD device and HyperCore manages the use of the GPU across partitions, so that one GPU, with the EGL_EXT_Compositor, can support multiple displays with mixed design assurance level (DAL) requirements. The whole system will be certified to airworthiness.
Will Keegan, CTO of Lynx Software Technologies, explained: “Lynx MOSA.ic gives developers the ability to integrate complex software components, with precise control over how these components are deployed on multicore hardware”.
Lynx has collaborated with CoreAVI to run the HyperCore GPU virtualisation manager in a separate partition on Lynx MOSA.ic, rather than as a driver running in a hypervisor for ease of integration, and to lower the cost, effort and risk of multi-core certification, he added.
Lynx MOSA.ic is the framework for developing and integrating complex multi-core safety or security systems. Built on the LynxSecure separation kernel hypervisor, it supports a variety of operating systems such as LynxOS-178, Linux, Windows, third-party RTOS and bare metal applications including Lynx Simple Applications. Lynx MOSA.ic runs on Intel, Arm and PowerPC architectures.
