Certifying Airborne Military Equipment

The Objective

To certify airborne military equipment with an embedded multi-core processor to the highest assurance level DAL-A covering CAST-32A requirements

How Wind River Helped

Wind River^® has worked with Airbus to support the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft for automatic air-to-air refueling (A3R). The MRTT aircraft is the world’s first tanker to be certified for automatic air-to-air refueling boom operations in daylight.

Airbus uses VxWorks^® 653 for the A330 MRTT air-to-air refueling boom system (ARBS). This system is comprised of multiple ARINC 653–compliant applications running at multiple levels of safety-criticality and has achieved DO-178C DAL A certification.

The Results

The automated A3R system enables more efficient operation, reduces the air refueling operator (ARO) workload, reduces the inherent risk of this operation, and optimizes the rate of air-to-air refueling transfer. In A3R, advanced technologies can identify the receiving aircraft’s shape and its refueling receptacle, then perform automated contact and fuel transfer while flying at high altitude.

With this development, the Airbus A330 MRTT A3R capability has earned the distinction of being certified by the Spanish National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), involving multiple ED-12C/DO-178C DAL A applications running simultaneously on multiple cores on a multi-core processor.