Optimizing ARINC 661 Rendering for OpenGL with Hardware Support in the JetOS Aviation Operating System

Abstract

This paper denotes to the problem of the pilot display visualization speed. The software used in avionics has to follow strict rules prescribed by many standards. The studies used OpenGL Safety Critical (SC) with hardware support for Vivante GPU running in the aircraft real time operating system JetOS. One of the avionics standards – ARINC 661 – defines the application rendered in a cockpit display system. It raises the issue of efficient OpenGL SC using to ensure the acceptable visualization speed. Due to the specific of application prepared by the ARINC 661 server the visualization speed for the prospective aircraft platform (i.MX6 processor with Vivante GPU) is too slow to meet aviation requirements. An efficient visualization speed acceleration algorithm has been proposed and implemented. Firstly the OpenGL calls were optimized. But this optimization cannot be directly integrated into the ARINC 661 server. So a special intermediate module was designed and elaborated. The proposed approach makes it possible to achieve a visualization speed acceptable for an aircraft pilot display.