Automated Drawbridge System Gets a Lift from QNX

Quick Facts:

• Automated bridge-raising system eliminates delays on busy shipping routes.
• Engineers had to develop and deploy the system within five months, while guaranteeing extremely high levels of reliability.
• Using the QNX RTOS, the system’s engineers reduced development time by an estimated 30%.

In many cities, drawbridges play an essential role in transportation. Take St. Petersburg, for instance, which serves as a “sea gateway” to Europe. The city was originally built at the mouth of the Neva River, which splits St. Petersburg in two. As a result, a total of eight drawbridges now connect the city’s two riverbanks.

During the navigation season, up to 50 cargo ships sail along the Neva River every night. The weight of the Trinity bridge's draw span is 5000 tons, yet the bridge must raise within 10 minutes. Unfortunately, most of that time was traditionally consumed by police efforts to halt road traffic, leaving only 3 to 4 minutes to raise the bridge.

In response, PromTransAvtomatika proposed a new control system that would not only automate the bridge-raising process and eliminate delays, but also handle the bridge’s monitoring systems and detect any possible malfunctions. To raise such an incredible mass in such a short time frame, the new system had to operate flawlessly and in a highly synchronized fashion — there was no room for error. An untimely control action could, for example, fatally damage the bridge's actuators.

From development to deployment in five months

The main challenge was time — or, to be precise, the lack of it. To develop and deploy the system, engineers had to work between two navigation periods, a total of just five months. What’s more, they had to perform all the tests on a live system, since no simulation could provide a comprehensive picture of the system’s operations.

After investigating several options, PromTransAvtomatika concluded that only a microkernel operating system could deliver the reliability and scalability demanded by the Trinity Bridge's design. “Only the QNX RTOS provided the predictable response times and effective hardware interaction to achieve the accurate parameter measurements and timely control actions that our developers required,” said Evgeny Leibovich, general director, NPP PromTransAvtomatika.

“Convenient programming mechanisms like multitasking and synchronous message passing helped our developers meet the development time frames. Also, the TCP/IP support provided by QNX simplified integration of the new system into the existing system.”

The City of St. Petersburg engineers reduced their development time approximately 30% by harnessing the reliability of the QNX RTOS. Pleased with the results, they plan to use the same system on the Lieutenant Schmidt drawbridge and on all other St. Petersburg bridges undergoing reconstruction.

About QNX Software Systems

QNX Software Systems, a Harman International company (NYSE: HAR), is the industry leader in realtime, embedded OS technology. The component-based architectures of the QNX® Neutrino® RTOS and QNX Momentics® development suite together provide the industry’s most reliable and scalable framework for building innovative, high-performance embedded systems. Global leaders such as Cisco, DaimlerChrysler, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens depend on QNX technology for network routers, medical instruments, vehicle telematics units, security and defense systems, industrial robotics, and other mission- or life-critical applications. Founded in 1980, QNX Software Systems is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and distributes products in over 100 countries worldwide.

QNX, Momentics, and Neutrino are registered trademarks of QNX Software Systems in certain jurisdictions.