Korea IT Times covers ‘World Best Software’ selected by Ministry of Knowledge Economy in a series. Prof. Jin-wook Chung, a technical editor of Korea IT Times, participated in an interview for technical analysis. 

DAEJEON, KOREA – With latest weapon systems becoming more advanced and precise, software in the system has grown in importance. Software Engineering Institute revealed that software involvement of the F-4 was 8 percent in 1960 but that of F-35 jumped to 90 percent in 2006. Embedded software is also vital to the Korean defense industry but the industry still heavily relies on imported software, and pays huge license fee every year. Last year, import of RTOS amounted to around USD80 million and particularly Vxworks of Windriver, a U.S. based embedded software company, has dominated the domestic market with around 80% share. If this trend continues, the amount of RTOS import including royalty is expected to reach around USD 100 million by 2014.

The Korean defense industry is now striving to break from the past experience of importing the embedded software and to localize them. Ministry of Knowledge Economy(MKE) also initiated a WBS(World Best Software) project to develop RTOS(Real Time Operating System) for K2 black panther, Korean main battle tank. Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and MDS Technology were jointly selected for the development of RTOS. Hyundai Rotem which designed and produced K2 also participated in the project.  

Embedded Software for K2 black panther

“Embedded software technology for national defense should be secured at all costs as it is directly related to performance of weapon systems. There have also been growing voices from the industry to localize RTOS. When they need to tune OS for developing weapon systems, sometimes it takes several months. If some parts of the products are imported, it is also difficult to export them without permission. From this WBS project, we plan to develop reliable RTOS kernel for weapon systems, OS sub system(Network Communication Protocol, Graphic Library, Flash File System) and Integrated Development Environment(IDE) where application software is conveniently developed and tested. We are aiming to catch up with around 80% of VxWorks, which are its main functions, and it will be developed to be better, more convenient and user-friendly than VxWorks. Lastly, application software will be applied to K2 and the performance will be verified through HILS(Hardware in the Loop simulation) tests”, said Pyeong-soo Mah, Principal Researcher of ETRI.

ETRI and MDS Technology are the only organizations in Korea which developed RTOS. ETRI successfully developed RTOS named ROSEK(Reliable OSEK) for automobile Electronic Control Unit(ECU), and was for the first time in Korea certified OSEK/VDX, an industry standard for RTOS, by Mercedes-Benz Technology. In 2008, ETRI signed technology transfer agreement on ROSEK with Hyundai Autoever, and Avante, Hyundai’s compact car, with ROSEK is planned to be mass-produced next year.

MDS Technology also succeeded in developing RTOS in collaboration with Seoul National University in 2001 and has supplied to civilian industries. Since 2007, they joined ‘SW flagship’, a five year government project aiming to localize embedded software of T-50 Golden Eagle which previously heavily relied on imported parts. In 2010, within two and half years, its RTOS named NEOS was proved as certifiable to level A in DO-178B, the international standard in aviation software, by designated auditor from US FAA.

Reliability Test

“Reliability is of utmost importance in developing RTOS for weapon systems, and we set diverse plans to prove the kernel reliability. We completed tests based on coding rules(coding standard of Defense Acquisition Program Administration(DAPA)) and performed defects detection using static analysis tools. Now, the kernel is in the process of being tested on the development board which carries out tests over 10,000 times. From December, it will undergo 1,000 tests in HILS. After all is completed, the kernel will finally be loaded on K2 for vehicle test. During the whole procedures, the test documents and procedures are reviewed by National IT Industry Promotion Agency(NIPA) and Defense Agency for Technology and Quality(DTAQ). Constant monitoring of the whole process online and offline by DTAQ under DAPA is meaningful for the project. On top of this, we added the third party verification which is a very rare case in the industry and which most companies are reluctant to do as they should reveal all their documents and source codes to outside. But we both agreed on it as we wanted to conduct tests as rigorous as possible because reliability is the most vital in this project. We try to do as diverse tests as possible by testing on API(application programming interface) level and by developing diverse application programs for test to make sure the kernel should not fail in any environment.” Mah said.

Application to Diverse Areas

The first goal of this project is to localize imported automatic shell loading systems of K2 black panther. Next, they will gradually be applied to other weapon systems such as fire weapons and defense weapons, and ultimately to unmanned weapon systems. Lastly, the ultimate goal of this project is to supply the software to diverse civilian industries such as medical sector, industry automation, and robots. 

Shin Ji-hye (info@koreaittimes.com) 다른기사 보기