Wind River Launches New VxWorks Version to Build a Digital Foundation for the Internet of Everything

[51CTO.com original article] Have you ever experienced fatigue driving? The irresistible sleepiness makes the driver drowsy, his eyelids become heavier, and the steering wheel in his hand begins to lose its sense of existence. It seems that he will fall into a sweet dream in the next second. Suddenly, a pleasant reminder sounded in his ears, so the driver woke up and found that the car had stopped on the side of the road. In surprise, he may not have thought of what happened to the car at this moment: first, the camera in the car found that the driver's eyes were closed through image recognition. After machine learning, the on-board chip immediately determined that this was dangerous driving, and then triggered the reminder device. At the same time, the automatic driving system started, entered the highly sensitive mode, and began to flash a small yellow light to remind other cars to pay attention.

This is not a scene from a science fiction movie, but a scene that will soon become common in people's lives. Relying on the new version of VxWorks, a real-time operating system (RTOS) just released by Wind River, developers can combine machine recognition technology and the high-speed connection brought by 5G to bring about a leap-forward change in car control and user experience. In fact, not only for developers of automotive companies, the new version of VxWorks can also provide more efficient support for developers in many industries such as energy, aviation, and manufacturing, accelerating the arrival of the digital world.

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VxWorks' powerful support only makes developers more worry-free!

Support for developers from different backgrounds may be the most eye-catching feature of the new version of the real-time operating system (RTOS) VxWorks. With the acceleration of the domestic digitalization process, the new generation of developers are very familiar with cloud native technologies and are more willing to use flexible development tools and mainstream programming languages ​​to innovate. The newly released VxWorks can reduce the difficulty of development for developers, improve development efficiency, and create a new era of mission-critical application systems.

Let’s take a closer look at VxWorks’ strong support for developers! First, VxWorks is the first and only real-time operating system to support C++17. Second, software developers around the world can now use Python to develop applications for VxWorks. Third, a survey found that embedded development teams like to use Rust the most, so VxWorks, as the world’s most widely used real-time operating system, also supports Rust. Finally, Wind River also presents an open source gift package - more motherboard support packages! The new version of VxWorks includes several new BSPs, and Wind River is adding them to the hundreds of BSPs that are already supported, which is more than any other RTOS on the market.

Keep pace with the times, what customers think is what Wind River thinks

In fact, the release of this new version is a reflection of Wind River's consistent strategic style. Wind River has always had a very clear attitude towards operating systems - never stick to the old ways and always keep up with the times.

At the beginning, Wind River's star product VxWorks had the same status in the operating system as Microsoft's Windows had in the PC operating system. However, unlike Microsoft's resistance to Linux, Wind River wholeheartedly embraced Linux and introduced it into the operating system family. After five years of development, Wind River has firmly occupied the forefront of embedded Linux operating systems and has formed complementary advantages with VxWorks. Dual operating systems bring more choices to users. Customers with high requirements for real-time and stability can choose VxWorks, while customers who value the open source software ecosystem and hope for more flexible multimedia applications will choose Linux.

Later, with the emergence of the Helix product set, Wind River provided key support for the autonomous transformation of infrastructure systems. In the style of "the only constant is change", Wind River not only completely changed the RTOS (real-time operating system) market with VxWorks, but also maintained a leading position in global market share in many fields such as RTOS, commercial-grade embedded Linux, embedded hypervisors and secure operating systems.

Building a digital foundation for the era of the Internet of Everything

In fact, the industry has long recognized the importance of operating systems in the era of the Internet of Everything. As the foundation of all applications, the threshold of operating systems is getting higher and higher. How to ensure security and reliability while supporting more functions is a perennial theme of operating systems. In particular, critical infrastructure, in addition to maintaining the characteristics of critical business, also emphasizes edge applications, which brings security challenges.

Among them, the most prominent application is the car's autonomous driving. As shown in the scene at the beginning of the article, all intelligent applications and new experiences not only rely on the low latency and high bandwidth of network connections, but also place strict requirements on the security and stability of the operating system. In addition, in many fields such as traffic control, telemedicine, industrial Internet, and smart home, traditional industry users must rely on various emerging technologies if they want to transform. What Wind River OS can provide is the digital foundation for all these application developments, carrying more possibilities.

Industry experts said that the release of the new version of VxWorks can be seen as a new driving force for the embedded development community. In 2019, 5G began commercial use, Wi-Fi6 released a new international standard, and the era of the Internet of Everything is constantly evolving. The demand for software development in the future will be extremely large, so the support provided to developers must also become stronger and stronger. This is also the original intention of Wind River's new version of VxWorks, which marks a new starting point for the operating system, allowing developers to go further.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]