| On April 23, 2009, a technical seminar, “QNX Technology Day,” was held in Moscow. The event was organized by SWD Software and SWD Embedded Systems. The event was attended by over 70 representatives from various industries and sciences, such as aviation, space exploration, military-industrial complex, communications and telecommunications, transport, mechanical engineering, robotics, metallurgy, oil and gas.
According to the organizers, the key objective of the technical seminar «QNX Technology Day» was to demonstrate the latest QNX RTOS technologies using examples of the most popular hardware platforms of Russian and foreign manufacture. To achieve this goal, an event program was developed, which included presentations by experts in the field of embedded technologies, a demo exposition of implemented software and hardware solutions, as well as a discussion on the most pressing issues within the framework of a round table.
The seminar was opened by Alexander Varvarik, Technical Director of SWD Software. Mr. Varvarik spoke about an effective toolkit for developing control systems — the QNX 6.4 platform, the technologies of which allow maximizing the performance, reliability and portability of embedded systems in the field of automotive electronics, industrial control, network systems, military-industrial complex and medical equipment. The second report was made by Sergey Zyl, Technical Director of SWD Embedded Systems, dedicated to the standard fault-tolerance mechanisms of the QNX hard real-time system.
The program of presentations was continued by experts in the field of software and hardware solutions. Boris Bobrov, CEO of Icytecture, gave a report on «Using i.MX and QNX processors in industrial and medical projects.» Leading experts from SVD VS covered the issues of creating and using software and hardware solutions based on the QNX RTOS and the ARM platform, Fastwel products and the MIPS32 architecture.
As part of the demo exposition, the seminar participants got acquainted with working samples of software and hardware solutions based on QNX technologies and hardware platforms of Russian and foreign manufacture. The stands presented:
• Software and hardware solutions based on QNX and ARM.
• Software and hardware solutions based on Intel Atom (x86 architecture).
• Domestic developments on the platform of the MIPS32 hardware architecture.
• QNX CAR software platform for automotive systems.
• Fast boot technologies on the Intel Atom family of processors.
• QNX technologies on the Icytecture platform of the Freescale i.MX processor family.
The seminar included a press briefing attended by journalists from leading periodicals in the field of information technology, industrial automation and embedded systems. Alexander Varvarik, Leonid Agafonov, Managing Director of SWD Software, and Larry Atkinson, Sales Manager for EMEA at QNX Software Systems (QSS) answered the journalists' questions.
First of all, the questions concerned the initiatives of the organizing companies in the field of participation in the formation of the Russian market of embedded solutions and adaptation of advanced world technologies to the requirements of Russian developers. Mr. Varvarik recalled that SWD Software has been working closely with QNX Software Systems, which is considered a leader in innovation in the field of real-time technologies, for eighteen years. The Russian company, as a partner of QSS, helps domestic developers adapt QNX technologies to the requirements of the domestic market, including regulatory documents in the field of information security. «With highly qualified personnel, we are able to perform very specific tasks in system programming, which allow customers to concentrate on the development of their product,» noted Alexander Varvarik.
Issues related to existing and future hardware and software solutions based on QNX technologies were also actively discussed. Leonid Agafonov emphasized that new hardware platforms are new markets, and the organizers of the seminar hope that they will be able to provide companies focused on new technologies with a full range of services on the QNX platform to fulfill their tasks. When asked about the industry purpose of the QNX RTOS, Larry Atkinson answered as follows: «First of all, QNX developers are focused on the needs of the automotive industry, but the business world is diverse and there are many other industry segments in which advanced QNX technologies are in demand, such as industrial automation, the military-industrial complex, telecommunications and the embedded systems market.»
«QNX Technology Day» ended with a round table, during which the participants of the event discussed current issues of creating hardware and software solutions based on advanced QNX RTOS technologies, hardware support and custom developments.
«The goal of our seminar was to show how QNX software technologies allow using all the functionality of the most popular hardware platforms today. In our opinion, this topic is interesting for developers, since they choose not only a hardware platform, but effectively working software and hardware systems that allow them to implement application projects more quickly. Our experience working with many hardware suppliers helped us prepare such a rich program,» said Leonid Agafonov. — Today, we can safely say that the «QNX Technology Day» was a great success, since we were able to invite more than 80 specialists from various industries and fields of activity, as well as our partners and media representatives to this event. We hope that the seminar will become a good tradition and will continue to be held in the future in addition to our key marketing event, the «QNX-Russia» conference, which is held every two years.
The information partners of the seminar were the magazines «Open Systems», «World of Communications. Connect!», «Automation in Industry», STA, «Embedded Systems», ISUP, the weekly PC Week/RE, the Internet portals ASTERA, DailyComm and Comprice.Ru.
About SWD Software
SWD Software Ltd. is an official distributor of QNX real-time OS and ConnectTech equipment in Russia and the CIS countries, and an IBM business partner for Telelogic products. The company's main activities include software and hardware supplies, pre-sales consultations, technical support, and certified training. SWD Software provides developers of embedded applications, real-time systems, and intelligent devices with a reliable software and hardware platform and effective tools for creating systems of any complexity.
About SWD Embedded Systems
The company «SVD Embedded Systems» is a developer and supplier of solutions based on a secure real-time operating system. The main areas of the company's activity are providing defense industry enterprises and enterprises focused on domestic hardware and software solutions with software that meets safety and reliability requirements. The company develops system software, performs custom software development, provides a full cycle of support for supplied and developed software, including training, consulting and participation in R & D. The company's activities are regulated by Russian licenses and certificates.
What is QNX
Since 1980, developers have used and relied on QNX technology to build systems that require trouble-free operation: medical devices, telematics devices, Internet routers, 911 call centers, industrial control systems, and even control systems for the International Space Station. Regardless of their scale and complexity, these systems have one thing in common: they all run continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without interruption.
QNX is a real-time operating system that strictly follows the principles of microkernel architecture. In the QNX real-time operating system, the kernel is responsible only for the basic OS primitives (signals, timers, scheduling, etc.). All other components of the operating system: file system drivers, protocol stacks, user applications are executed outside the kernel as separate processes, each in its own protected address space. This scheme initially has exceptional, «built-in» fault tolerance. No commercial real-time operating system offers such fault tolerance.
In addition, all components of the QNX real-time operating system communicate with each other using a single, clearly deterministic mechanism — message exchange. It forms a virtual «software bus» between the system components, allowing you to connect or, conversely, disconnect any component «on the fly». Moreover, messages can be freely transmitted between nodes of the computing network, providing transparent access to any resource, wherever it is located.
By choosing QNX as a platform for your solutions, you will be able to:
Reduce the time to market for new products:
Use the same operating system across the entire product line
Reuse technologies and developments created once
Use the hardware that best suits your needs – support and BSP availability for a variety of modern network processors and processor boards, including MIPS, PowerPC, SH-4, ARM, StrongArm, Intel XScale, and x86.
Quickly port open source UNIX applications to QNX — network protocols and services, as well as other functional modules…
Optimize development and maintenance costs:
Maximize performance and reliability, ensure operation in hard real-time mode
Create highly reliable systems capable of independent intelligent recovery and elimination of failure consequences – increasing the availability of services provided and minimizing administration and maintenance costs.
Use built-in support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and multi-core processors to create systems of any scale without changing the code and architecture of existing modules
Simplify the design of fault-tolerant clusters and add computing power by simply adding an additional processor to the network
Using adaptive resource decomposition technology, optimally use all the power of hardware platforms and provide guaranteed architecture-level protection against the impact of distributed denial-of-service attacks, malware, and resource shortages
Extend the product life cycle:
Design extremely reliable systems with the ability to dynamically update during operation without stopping work or rebooting
Examples of using the QNX real-time operating system in Russia
Typically, these are systems in industry that manage fairly complex and responsible production with very high requirements for response time to emergency situations, requirements for reliability and continuity of control.
The most famous application of the QNX real-time operating system in Russia is the automated control and management system for the opening of the Troitsky Bridge across the Neva in St. Petersburg, implemented by ZAO NPP Promtransavtomatika. This system has been in operation since April 2002. After the reconstruction, the bridge has never fallen behind schedule.
The control system for northern main oil pipelines, located in Ukhta. The system includes six hot-standby operator stations that simultaneously control four directions of the main oil pipeline on the Yaroslavl-Ukhta section (length 1,500 km).
The Sirius-QNX system is designed for operational dispatch control and control of the technological process of pumping oil along sections of eight main oil pipelines of Sibnefteprovod OJSC. The total length of the single-line oil pipeline system is 3,696 km.
A QNX-based cold rolling mill automation system has been implemented at a 5-stand mill at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. QNX-based metallurgical production control systems operate in Norilsk, Nizhny Tagil, and Elektrostal.
Cellulose ether injection system for the Romashkinskoye deposit (Almetyevsk)
Ship traffic control systems in ports (St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Mariupol) and along the Kerch Strait (Kavkaz port)
The information and control system of the compressor shop of the gas pumping enterprise is being implemented at the facilities of the Volgotransgaz enterprise of OAO Gazprom. Currently, the system has been implemented in the Morkinsky LPU MG, Vyatka LPU MG, Vyaznikovsky LPU MG and Vladimir LPU MG, CS Vyazniki.
«OAO Salavatnefteorgsintez», APCS for benzene production based on SCADA Realflex. The control system operates more than 16,000 physical channels.
DO SMU-4 «Mosmetrostroy», Moscow. Automated control system for water pumping and smoke removal of the Gagarin railway tunnel based on SCADA STATUS-4. The Gagarin tunnel is the longest railway tunnel in Europe within the city.
Computing systems for solving problems of emergency automation and emergency control of various levels in energy systems manufactured by JSC «Institute for Automation of Energy Systems» (Novosibirsk).
Currently, the following are in operation: UVK APNU of the Taimyr and Norilsk energy systems, UVK ADV of the western and central parts of the UES of Siberia.
Examples of using the QNX real-time operating system abroad
The most prominent example of the use of the QNX real-time operating system is the handling of VISA credit cards in all regional offices in North America.
Traffic management. The city of Ottawa-Carleton (Canada) has developed a traffic management system for the regional municipality of Ottawa-Calerton (RMOC) based on the QNX real-time operating system. This system combines about 700 traffic lights and 3,000 roadside sensors along 1,100 kilometers of highway. The capacity of these highways is 5.4 billion cars per year. In addition to the time and duration of traffic light switching at each intersection in the city, this control system must record events and analyze the performance of equipment through roadside sensors.
Nuclear Reactor Management. One of the divisions of the Canadian company Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which is known as a developer, manufacturer and seller of nuclear reactors, specializes in the development of software products for control and monitoring. Based on the QNX real-time operating system, this division has developed a nuclear reactor control system called the Open Architecture Distributed Control System.
In addition to using the QNX real-time operating system in the field of control, it is also successfully used for scientific research: modeling processes, tracking the progress of experiments.
Cisco Systems uses an optimized version of the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system microkernel in the IOS XR software. The IOS XR software package is designed to manage Cisco CRS-1 switches, provides continuous operation and supports advanced control functions for terabit switches with a distributed architecture.
b2blogger
qnx.ru |
