Mannarino Systems & Software recently achieved a first flight with its M-RTOS real-time operating system, which has been developed to support flight controls and other systems for remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). The Canada-based company made the flight on September 24 using a light aircraft being employed by MicroPilot to develop its autopilot technology. The milestone was announced on October 5 during this week’s AUVSI Xponential unmanned systems conference.
According to MicroPilot, the M-RTOS operating system will support its plans to have the autopilot certified and ready for deliveries to unmanned-aircraft manufacturers in early 2021. Mannarino says M-RTOS is suitable for any size of autonomous aircraft and can support a wide variety of computer processors.
“Given that the M-RTOS sits very low in typical software architecture, it can be used with a multitude of systems on an RPAS,” senior product manager Mario Iacobelli explained to FutureFlight. The system is compliant with Arinc 653 data standards for interfaces between operating systems and the individual software applications that support RPAS aircraft. It is also certifiable under the RTCA/Eurocae Do-178C standards for software in airborne systems.
For an autopilot developer like MicroPilot, M-RTOS allows it to safely partition different software applications in a way that meets certification requirements while also allowing it to respond to customer requests for different features without adversely impacting the autopilot’s core software.
