Curtis-Wright adopts Wind River Workbench

Embedded computing software vendor Wind River Systems and aerospace embedded system developer Curtiss-Wright Controls’ Embedded Computing announced a multi-level strategic agreement by which Curtiss-Wright is standardizing its x86-based rugged board products on Wind River General Purpose Platform, Linux Edition and RTCore, and on Wind River Workbench.

By Control Engineering Staff May 16, 2007

Alameda, CA —Embedded computing software vendor Wind River Systems and aerospace embedded system developer Curtiss-Wright Controls’ Embedded Computing announced a multi-level strategic agreement by which Curtiss-Wright is standardizing its x86-based rugged board products on Wind River General Purpose Platform, Linux Edition and RTCore, and on Wind River Workbench. Curtiss-Wright is said to be the industry’s most complete and experienced vendor for rugged deployed COTS solutions, delivering increasingly complex and safety-critical solutions to the aerospace & defense market. Wind River’s open solutions allow customers to rapidly develop, test, deploy, maintain, and manage high-reliability systems. The companies say the agreement will result in less risk for aerospace and defense customers.

Wind River’s VxWorks is currently Curtiss-Wright’s defacto real time operating system (RTOS). Through the agreement Curtiss-Wright adds Wind River Linux standardization for x86 board products. Benefits to aerospace and defence embedded system users include:

Curtiss-Wright has already developed feature lists for Wind River Linux that are broader than with other RTOSs, which means more functionality is available “out of the box” than with other RTOSs.

Curtiss-Wright’s higher layer software, such as processor communications, middleware, flash management and development tools are all supported under Wind River operating systems.

Curtiss-Wright has approx 40 in-house developers and support staff that are Wind-River experts, yielding better technical support and higher quality BSP/driver outputs.

Curtiss-Wright is the first aerospace and defense vendor to fully support Wind River’s General Purpose Platform, Linux Edition as a “reference” Linux distribution.

The companies claim that the new strategic partnership will result in risk mitigation, faster time to market, and enhanced testing and reliability, and will ensure customer support for long-lifecycle (up to 10-20 years) aerospace and defense programs.

— Control Engineering Daily News Desk C.G. Masi , senior editor