Building a digital instrument cluster? Read this first.

Digital instrument clusters may be cool, but if your development team takes on the challenge of building one, expect a development path dotted with some unexpected twists and turns.

This is especially true if the team has built only analog speedometers and gauges in the past. Suddenly, everyone has to migrate from the 8- or 16-bit world to the 32-bit world. And that means a new tool chain, a new operating system, and a new way of thinking about software development.

For example:

• Yesterday, you used a relatively simple task loop. Today, you have to create multithreaded apps.


• Yesterday, you used static memory management. Today, you must allow for a dynamic heap and test carefully for potential heap leaks.


• Yesterday, you didn’t worry much about code integration. Today, you must link or bundle a BSP, device drivers, graphics libraries, and numerous other components. Hello reliable build processes and configuration management.


• Yesterday, you used traditional embedded skills: setting bits for I/O pins, reading A-to-D converters, sending CAN messages, and so on. Today, you have to bone up on Adobe Flash, socket programming, USB, or XML.

To help development teams identify and negotiate many of these roadblocks, Auto Electronics has posted a new article by QNX's Andy Gryc, titled "Design Challenges for Digital Instrument Clusters".

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

QNX chosen to power GE’s flagship Mark VIe control platform

It controls gas turbines, steam turbines, hydro plants, and nuclear plants, including the largest power and water facility on the planet. It runs in hundreds of installations worldwide — from Cairo to Quebec to Los Angeles — delivering electric power to homes, hospitals, factories, and businesses. It’s called the GE Mark VIe, and GE Energy promotes it as the company's "most advanced control platform."

The heart of the GE Mark VIe is a single-board controller based on the QNX Neutrino RTOS and the Freescale PowerQUICC 8349 processor. Designed for high-uptime operation, the Mark VIe supports:

• a variety of redundancy options, including dual or triple controllers, dual or triple power sources, and dual or triple networks



• precision diagnostics to minimize mean-time-to-repair



• on-line repair to maximize the mean-time-between-forced-outages

Moreover, each QNX-based controller can communicate with up to three network switches. This allows each controller to monitor multiple redundant inputs and use a voting system to determine which input values are correct.

The Mark VIe can handle rugged environments, with a rated temperature range of 0 to 65°C (32 to 149 °F). It doesn’t require cooling fans, even at maximum temperature.

According to GE, the Mark VIe addresses a wide range of applications, from small governors to plant DCS applications. These include heavy-duty gas-turbine retrofits, aeroderivative engine-control retrofits, steam-turbine retrofits, and hydro control.

I can’t begin to do justice to the Mark VIe’s many features. So to learn more about it, click here. To download the data sheet, click here. And to learn about some of the applications that use the Mark VIe, check out these links:

• Power and Water facility in Saudia Arabia


• BP Watson Cogeneration Facility


• Hydro Québec Nuclear Station


• Power plants in Turkey


• Power plant in Cairo

QNX spells out its offering for industrial automation developers

If you develop systems for the industrial automation market, I recommend you check out the new "Industrial" section on the QNX website. It has all the obligatory marketing messages about how QNX provides a complete solution for your design requirements, yadda, yadda, yadda. But for my money, it also provides useful information on the technology QNX has assembled for IA developers.

Some highlights:

• A diagram illustrating the QNX "industrial software stack". To see the full version, click here, then click the Technology tab. Once you see the diagram, click the "View All" button.



• A list of protocols, frame grabbers, I/O cards, and other third-party technologies compatible with QNX. Click the Ecosystem tab.



• A list of relevant certifications, including POSIX, ISO, and SIL 3, that QNX has either achieved or is in the process of achieving. Click the Certifications tab.

Building automotive user interfaces in a Flash

Literally. Recently, a colleague posted a video of the QNX CAR infotainment reference, which sports a user interface implemented entirely in Adobe Flash Lite. (There are also many QNX technologies running under the hood, including an RTOS and a real-time graphics framework, but the parts you see all run in Flash.)

The infotainment reference, which provides automakers with a platform for building their own in-car products, contains a YouTube widget, an MP3 player, and a photo album — things that would be familiar to any iPhone user. For me, the surprising bits include a Pandora music player and the (extremely useful) sound-system controls. I don't know about you, but I've always hated fiddling with the Fade and Balance controls on my car radio. With QNX CAR, you can simply drag your finger to where you want the sound to go.

Enough blather. Let's watch the darn thing:

Pimp my (digital) drive: 2010 Range Rover gets QNX-based instrument cluster

No more mechanical gauges for the Land Rover Range Rover. The new 2010 model sports a QNX-based digital instrument cluster that displays virtual speedometers and gauges, as well as system warnings, suspension settings, steering angle, and a variety of other information, all on a 12" TFT screen:



As I've mentioned in previous posts, digital clusters offer something that traditional analog clusters can't: dynamic reconfigurability. Shift into reverse, and the digital cluster replaces a tachometer with a backup camera. Switch from highway mode to off-road mode, and the cluster displays information to help you negotiate the back road to your Aunt Mabel's cottage.

In the case of the Range Rover, you can even customize the cluster to your personal preferences. So throw out that pinstriping kit, 'cause you can pimp this ride without one. Well, sort of.

Visteon, the company that built the cluster for the 2010 Range Rover, is a long-established QNX customer. In addition to the Range Rover cluster, Visteon has used the QNX Neutrino RTOS in a variety of infotainment, handsfree, and navigation systems.

According to the QNX press release, QNX Software Systems also provided engineering services to help Visteon achieve the short bootup times demanded by Land Rover. A cluster of this sophistication requires an impressive amount of software, so I'm guessing the Range Rover cluster uses a combination of fastboot techniques. The cluster may also use QNX's instant device activation technology, but I'm guessing on that one.

Recently, MTA Group, an auto supplier based out of Italy, also announced that they use QNX for digital instrument clusters.

For previous posts on digital instrument clusters, click here.

QNX 6.4.2 development has started. So what are you going to do about it?

QNX Software Systems has started development on version 6.4.2 of the QNX Neutrino RTOS and QNX Momentics Tool Suite. The planned feature set includes ARM Cortex A9 support, faster interrupt-to-thread latency on Power processors, and PPS.

But you know, folks, this isn't the old days, when you had to wait and see what the final product contained. You can now follow QNX product development in real time. In fact, you can participate in the development process. And you can start by visiting the 6.4.2 OS features wiki page.

Qt comes to QNX Neutrino RTOS

This just in: Qt Software today announced that a partially completed port of the Qt user interface framework is now available for the QNX Neutrino RTOS. A port for VxWorks was also announced.

According to a QT blog post, "Qt on QNX can run on its own, even without an X11 server, using the Qt Window System (QWS) that up until now has only been available on GNU/Linux."

The blog goes on to say that the ports are "community supported, so be prepared for messy moments." You gotta love these guys.

Here's the obligatory video:



To check out the press release, click here. To learn more about Qt, click here. For information on native graphics solutions for QNX Neutrino, click here.