Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On May 10, 2023, the long March 7 Yao 7 carrier rocket successfully launched the Tianzhou 6 cargo spacecraft from the Wenchang launch site in Hainan. The first satellite in Liaoning Province, Dalian 1 / Lianli Satellite, designed and developed by Dalian University of Technology, flew into space aboard the Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft. The satellite is equipped with OpenHarmony operating system and can realize low-cost sub-meter-level high-resolution ocean / pair-to-earth observations in orbit.

Behind the success of this satellite is another major breakthrough of OpenHarmony in the field of aerospace. With the blessing of OpenHarmony, the satellite has greatly improved the performance and reliability of the system, indicating that the high performance and reliability of OpenHarmony will be fully verified, and also reflects the strong technical strength of OpenHarmony and the application potential of high-end technology industry.

So how is OpenHarmony applied to Dalian 1 / Lianli satellite? What performance improvements have been brought to the satellite by the application of OpenHarmony? What are the advantages of OpenHarmony over other real-time operating systems? What other changes will OpenHarmony bring to China's aerospace field in the future?

With these questions, the author interviewed Yu Xiaozhou, commander-in-chief of Dalian No.1 / Lianli Satellite and professor of School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Dalian University of Technology, and learned the story of how he and his team applied OpenHarmony to satellite research and development.

First understanding of OpenHarmony: breaking the restriction of Foreign operating system on the Development of Micro / Nano Satellite in China

Yu Xiaozhou is currently focusing on the design and development of micro-nano satellites, which are satellites weighing 1 kg to 100 kg. Micro-nano satellite has gradually become an important force in space exploration because of its small size, light weight, low cost, strong flexibility, short launch cycle and so on. At the same time, micro-nano satellites are increasingly used in complex space missions and space exploration in recent years, which require ultra-high precision attitude determination and control, as well as high-speed communication and data processing capabilities. therefore, the reliability and real-time requirements of the operating system are much higher than those of general ground applications. Real-time operating system (RTOS) has become the preferred operating system for micro-and nano-satellites because of its timely response ability and high reliability.

Yu Xiaozhou said that for a long time, micro-nano satellites lacked high-performance domestic real-time operating systems, and a few years ago, under the influence of the epidemic and the international environment, the team began to use domestic chips on some key systems of micro-nano satellites. However, the support of foreign operating systems for domestic chips is not perfect, so that for a long time the team used domestic chips in a state of "naked running". As a result, the processing cycle of the satellite is very long and the response is very slow.

There is an urgent need for a real-time operating system which can adapt to domestic chips and has good enough performance in order to break the restriction of foreign operating systems on the development of micro-and nano-satellites in our country. In September 2020, Huawei contributed the basic capabilities of its self-developed terminal operating system HarmonyOS to the Open Atomic Open Source Foundation, which integrated the contributions of other participants to form the OpenHarmony open source project. OpenHarmony has been positioned as an operating system in the Internet of everything era since its birth, and its goal is to build a framework and platform for an intelligent terminal device operating system based on open source and to promote the prosperity and development of the Internet of everything industry in the era of full scene, full connection and full intelligence.

After the birth of OpenHarmony, Yu Xiaozhou quickly realized the application potential of this innovative system in the field of micro-and nano-satellites, and established a communication channel with the Open Atomic Open Source Foundation at the end of 2021. In Yu Xiaozhou's view, OpenHarmony is easy to develop, supports tailoring based on different hardware capabilities, and efficient data and task transmission capabilities can well meet the various needs of satellite research and development.

With the continuous improvement of OpenHarmony system capabilities and the continuous adaptation of mainstream chips, Yu Xiaozhou believes that the time is ripe. So at the beginning of 2022, led by the Open Atomic Open Source Foundation, the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, Tsinghua University, Wuhan University, Shanghai Micro Satellite Innovation Research Institute, Changguang Satellite, Ai Space Science and Technology, and Aerospace Creator jointly established the Open Source Hongmeng Aerospace working Group (OpenHarmony In Space, OHIS). Dalian University of Technology is the group leader, because Xiaozhou serves as the leader of the working group. Work together to promote the application of domestic real-time operating systems in the field of aerospace. Yu Xiaozhou also officially began his journey of applying OpenHarmony to satellite research and development.

Deep ploughing OpenHarmony: "its performance and reliability reassure me."

In the process of applying OpenHarmony to the research and development of Dalian No. 1 / Lianli satellite, Yu Xiaozhou deeply felt: "after the introduction of OpenHarmony, the reliability and processing capacity of the satellite have been greatly improved. We have done experiments on the ground for 1000 hours and found that the operation of the satellite system is always stable and the transmission is very reliable."

After in-depth verification of OpenHarmony, Yu Xiaozhou believes that compared with other operating systems, OpenHarmony has three main advantages: first, OpenHarmony is a domestic operating system, compared with foreign operating systems, OpenHarmony is much better in technical support, and there are relevant staff to solve and deal with problems encountered in the process of use, which can greatly reduce the workload of research and development and let the team focus on solving more complex problems. Second, OpenHarmony adapts to more chips and processors, and can be applied to a wide range of satellite types. Compared with "naked running" satellites, satellites carrying OpenHarmony are more efficient and stable. Third, OpenHarmony has more advantages in data processing capacity and output rate. "taking the integrated attitude measurement system integrated with sun sensor, magnetometer and gyroscope in the satellite as an example, after using OpenHarmony optimization, the average response speed of the system has been greatly improved, from the original 2Hz to more than 20Hz."

The superposition of various advantages made the research and development of the satellite get twice the result with half the effort. Finally, under the efforts of the team in Xiaozhou, Dalian 1 / Lianli satellite carrying OpenHarmony was successfully developed and launched within the preset time, which is of great value and significance to verify the high reliability and real-time transmission of the OpenHarmony operating system in space.

According to Yu Xiaozhou, the main load of Dalian-1 / Lianli satellite is a high-resolution multi-spectral camera, which has five spectral bands of full color spectrum and multi-spectrum, and can realize low-cost sub-meter high-resolution ocean / ground observation in orbit. In the process of satellite design, multiple satellite attitude control systems use OpenHarmony real-time operating system and domestic processing chip integrated scheme, so that the performance and reliability of the system are greatly improved. In addition, the satellite also uses an innovative hydroxylamine nitrate single-component propulsion system, which has the characteristics of green non-toxic, high energy, low power consumption and pre-packaging, which greatly improves the fast maneuverability of micro-and nano-satellites in orbit. "at present, Dalian No. 1 / Lianli satellite system has begun to send back data, and everything is in normal operation."

Promote OpenHarmony: "Let foreign satellites also use Chinese standards"

The successful launch of Dalian-1 / Lianli satellite is only a starting point. In the future, Yu Xiaozhou will continue to promote the application and development of OpenHarmony in aerospace field from three aspects.

First of all, OpenHarmony is extended to large domestic state-owned aerospace enterprises and scientific research institutes, and applied to large satellites, spaceships and space stations other than micro-and nano-satellites. "in fact, they all need highly reliable operating systems, and OpenHarmony has particularly obvious advantages in reliability, real-time, and adaptability. I believe that large domestic space enterprises and scientific research institutes will certainly be willing to use it."

Secondly, we will jointly carry out the compilation of the aerospace standard of the on-board real-time operating system based on OpenHarmony with our domestic counterparts, and constantly improve it, and extend it to various units and research institutions at home and abroad, so as to lay a good foundation for the further promotion and application of OpenHarmony in the aerospace industry at home and abroad. " As far as I know, there is currently a lack of operating system standards for on-board systems in the aerospace field. after we have launched this standard, we will promote it to the whole world, so that our standards can also be used abroad. This is also a manifestation of our self-reliance in basic research and science and technology. "

Finally, aerospace education and personnel training are carried out based on the OpenHarmony system. " Multi-disciplinary talents are needed in the aerospace field, and micro-nano satellites have the characteristics of multi-disciplinary integration of general satellites, which can play an important role in the training of aerospace talents. In addition, I am also planning to set up a student club or association in the hope that interested students will participate in the development of some satellites, so as to train a number of talents in the field of satellite research and development in our country. "

OpenHarmony's breakthrough in the aerospace field is inseparable from the dedication and hard work of people like Professor Yu Xiaozhou. The development and promotion of the operating system has a long cycle and slow results, which requires the joint efforts of academia, industry and other forces. What is gratifying is that in addition to the aerospace field, OpenHarmony is also taking root in many industries, such as transportation, education, finance, power, ultra-high definition, government affairs, cities, and so on. Look forward to more talents to join the OpenHarmony, to build a digital base that enables thousands of industries.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.