Lynx Software Framework Adopted for Gray Eagle-ER UAS

Lynx Software Technologies announced Wednesday that its LYNX MOSA.ic software framework was adopted by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) for the GRAY EAGLE Extended Range (GE-ER) unmanned aircraft.

According to the company, LYNX MOSA.ic is aligned with GA-ASI’s objectives to meet software-modernization targets for the GE-ER program that include safety and cost efficiency, as well as introducing new features, increasing system robustness, and securing future flexibility.

The GE-ER is a multi-mission UAS including surveillance and other intelligence gathering. The air vehicle carries sensors including color and thermographic cameras and is piloted remotely from a ground-control station via satellite data link or optionally by line-of-sight data link.

An early goal of the software modernization sought to integrate a new and advanced video codec implemented on the Zynq UltraScale+ adaptable multiprocessor system on chip (MPSoC) from Xilinx, Inc.

Lynx claims that the modularity of LYNX MOSA.ic enabled the team to achieve an efficient and robust solution in a mixed criticality environment including both Linux and a deterministic real-time operating system, the company claims. LYNX MOSA.ic securely partitions networking, security, safety and multimedia domains from each other, with prescriptive, defined and immutable allocation of hardware resources to each. This allows for incorporation of the Xilinx hardware without compromising hardware dependencies or the performance and determinism of other time-critical processes.

Although DO-178 certification is not an immediate requirement for the system, GA-ASI views the fact that Lynx provides a proven DO-178-certified OS with a path to DAL-A support as a significant advantage.

“The video codec on the Zynq UltraScale+ supports concurrent 4K 60fps video encoding, decoding and transcoding, is extremely efficient and will extend the capabilities of GE-ER, leveraging features of LYNX MOSA.ic to ensure reliability and system safety,” stated John Blevins, Senior Manager, Embedded Software and Ecosystem, at Xilinx.