White Paper: Enabling the Migration to Future Aerospace and Defense Systems

Embedded software used in aerospace and defense (A&D) systems is currently undergoing a dramatic evolution. Historically, these A&D systems had varying levels of network connectivity, performed fixed functions, and may have undergone manual software updates in the field as part of long in-service lifetimes. The advent of ubiquitous network connectivity through civilian and military communications infrastructure has accelerated innovation of these systems, known as edge devices, at the edge of the network. This has driven demand for enhanced application capabilities that perform traditional automation and control functions while adding greater intelligence and the ability to support more dynamic behavior.

There is now a growing demand across the aerospace and defense sector for devices to be able to support the greater intelligence required to transition from automated to autonomous systems. This is driving technical requirements for open standards–based software-defined architectures to enable consolidation of multiple applications, including those at different levels of criticality, onto common computing platforms. This approach enables application migration, portability, and interoperability in order to avoid being locked into proprietary architectures.

Wind River® Helix™ Virtualization Platform addresses these common requirements by providing a flexible virtualization platform that supports open standards–based, software-defined architectures. Based on proven software technologies, it enables systems to meet civil and military software safety certification requirements.