A Comparison of Partitioning Operating Systems for Integrated Systems

In present-day electronic systems, application subsystems from different vendors and with different criticality levels are integrated within the same hardware. Hence, encapsulation of these subsystems is required in the temporal as well as in the spatial domain. Partitioning Operating Systems (OSs) are employed to allow shared access of applications to critical resources within an integrated system. In this paper we will discuss fundamental properties of partitioning OSs and compare features of existing solutions. Thereby, we will investigate on LynxOS which is a partitioning OS according to ARINC653, on Tresos, a partitioning OS in accordance with AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR), as well as on two prototypical partitioning OS realizations that have been implemented within the Dependable Embedded COmponents and Systems (DECOS) project, an integrated project within the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission.