Wind River announces commitment to FACE Consortium

ALAMEDA, USA: Wind River, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, announced its commitment to The Open Group’s Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium, and congratulates the members of the Consortium for releasing the FACE Technical Standard, a standard that defines a common operating environment that supports the portability and reuse of software components across Department of Defense (DoD) aviation systems.

Founded in June 2010 by The Open Group, the FACE Consortium builds upon the tenets of open architecture (OA), integrated modular avionics (IMA), and modular open systems architecture (MOSA) by defining a standardized method of interface between software components and architectural segments. It is comprised of 39 members including DoD and industry member organizations, their representatives, and advisors.

“The open, modular avionics environment created by the FACE Technical Standard will expand the selection of military avionics applications, reduce total lifecycle costs, and facilitate standard conformance to maximize interoperability between software components within the avionics system,” said Chip Downing, senior director of aerospace and defense at Wind River. “To collaborate with nearly 40 organizations to establish an open, industry-wide technical standard is a significant achievement, and Wind River is very proud to be part of this important initiative.”

A principal member of the Consortium, Wind River currently delivers the following safe and secure platforms that will support the FACE Technical Standard, titled, “FACE Reference Architecture’s General Purpose, Safety and Security operating system profiles.”

General Purpose: With full compliance to POSIX PSE54, Wind River Linux will fully comply with the FACE General Purpose Profile that enables support for a wide range of applications on a standard-based foundation.

Safety: For applications with strict safety and/or ARINC 653 time and space partitioning requirements, VxWorks 653 will be the platform of choice to meet the FACE Safety Profile. With over 140 customers using VxWorks 653 on over 230 programs on over 50 aircraft, VxWorks 653 is the market leading ARINC 653 platform solution, and will enable a wide range of commercial and military applications to be deployed on FACE platforms.

Security: For systems with multi-level secure (MLS) requirements and/or Common Criteria EAL6+ security requirements, VxWorks MILS will satisfy the upcoming FACE Security Profile that is under development by The Open Group Minimal Run-Time working group for creating an open, multiple independent levels of security (MILS) API standard.