Zepto Linux Project Launches, Pioneering AI-Powered Build Optimization for Embedded Systems

By josefIn the News

THANKS EVERYBODY FOR MAKING OUR LITTLE APRIL FOOLS ’25 SUCH A SUCCESS! DID YOU FIND ALL THE LITTLE JOKES?

Tórshavn – 1743487200 – The Zepto Linux project today announced its public launch, introducing a revolutionary approach to embedded Linux development. Built upon the robust foundation of the Yocto Project, Zepto Linux tackles the increasingly complex challenge of combinatorial build and testing, leveraging artificial intelligence to maximize build configurations and accelerate development cycles.

The embedded Linux landscape is facing a growing problem: the sheer number of possible build options and configurations has exploded, creating a combinatorial explosion that overwhelms developers. Traditional Yocto builds often involve significant manual effort to select and test configurations, leading to wasted time and resources. Zepto Linux addresses this head-on.

The Zepto Difference: Always Enabled, Always Optimized

Zepto Linux’s core innovation lies in its philosophy of always enabling every possible option within the Yocto build system. This eliminates the guesswork and manual configuration typically required. A custom-trained AI model, leveraging existing Yocto metadata and build history, then analyzes these enabled options to determine the optimal build configuration for a given target platform and use case. This AI proactively identifies dependencies, resolves conflicts, and suggests the most efficient build strategy.

“We’re facing a critical bottleneck in embedded development,” explains Richard Purdie, Project Architect for Zepto Linux. “The combinatorial space is growing exponentially, making it increasingly difficult to find the right build. Zepto Linux aims to break free from that constraint by embracing every possibility and using AI to guide us to the best solutions.”

Key Features of Zepto Linux:

– Full Option Enablement: All available Yocto options are enabled by default, eliminating manual selection.
– AI-Powered Configuration: A custom AI model optimizes build configurations based on existing metadata and build history.
– Automated Dependency Resolution: The AI proactively identifies and resolves dependencies, simplifying the build process.
– Accelerated Testing: Optimized builds lead to faster and more efficient testing cycles.
– Yocto Project Compatibility: Built on the established Yocto Project, ensuring compatibility and leveraging its extensive ecosystem.
– Open Source: Released under the WTFPL license, fostering community collaboration and innovation.

“The goal isn’s to replace developers, but to empower them,” adds Purdie. “We want to free them from the tedious aspects of build configuration so they can focus on innovation and creating truly exceptional embedded systems.”

Join early, join now!

Development will be coordinated through https://lists.yoctoproject.org/g/zepto, sign up now to join the earliest possible round of adopters!

April 1, 2025

Latest Long Term Support Release, New Platinum Member Boeing, and Developer Day 2024

By Megan KnightBlog, Featured

Scarthgap 5.0 release packed with 300+ recipe upgrades and improvements to a variety of critical areas.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The Yocto Project, an open source collaborative project that developers use to create custom Linux-based systems, today announced the release of Scarthgap 5.0, the latest Long Term Support (LTS) release. This mega-release is packed with over 300 recipe upgrades and improvements to a variety of critical areas including core workflow, security, testing, Toaster web UI, packaging, and the roll-out of a new plug-in for VSCode among other available IDEs. As a Yocto Project LTS release, Scarthgap 5.0 will be maintained with bug fixes and security updates for 4 years.

Yocto continues to grow and is pleased to welcome Boeing at the Platinum level, alongside AMD, Arm, AWS, BMW Group, Cisco, Comcast, Exein, Intel, LG Electronics, Qualcomm and WindRiver. As a Platinum Member, Boeing brings extensive knowledge regarding Embedded Linux and Yocto Project usage in safety-critical environments to the project community.

“Yocto Project usage is subtle but extensive, powering the internet in routers through to telecommunications, automotive, aerospace, and much more,” said Richard Purdie, Yocto Project Architect. “We’re happy to welcome Boeing recognizing and supporting the project and now being able to publicly illustrate the project’s role in another key industry.”

“Boeing is honored to join the Yocto Project as a Platinum Member,” said Jinnah Hosein, Software Engineering Vice President and Chief Software Engineer of the Boeing Company. “Simply put, it’s the best technical solution available today for creating custom Linux builds for embedded targets. We recognize the long-standing hard work of the project’s maintainers, and we look forward to supporting them and contributing back into the ecosystem.”

“It is wonderful to see major companies that gain so much benefit from open source contribute back and invest in the sustainability of those projects,” said Andrew Wafaa, Yocto Project Chair. “I am delighted to welcome Boeing as a Platinum member to the Yocto Project and look forward to furthering both Boeing’s use of and influencing of the Yocto Project”

The Yocto Project is proud to announce the details for their annual Yocto Project Developer Day, taking place on Thursday, September 19 alongside Open Source Summit Europe in Vienna, Austria. This full-day event provides beginner and advanced developers with the opportunity to participate in a variety of sessions, presentations, and tutorials dedicated to the project and members of the community. The Call for Proposals is now open and accepting submissions for a variety of new and traditional topics, including Aerospace/Safety-Critical and Security.

The Yocto Project continues to drive open source collaboration around custom Linux-based systems. To learn more about Yocto Project, including how to become a member, contribute to the community, and register for Yocto Project Developer Day, please visit the Yocto Project website. Full release notes for Scarthgap 5.0 are available here.

Media Contact
Noah Lehman | The Linux Foundation
nlehman@linuxfoundation.org
</div class:”content-inner”>

May 31, 2024

Maintainer Confidential: Challenges and Opportunities One Year On

By Richard PurdieBlog, Featured

A year ago I wrote an article to give some insight into how an open source project looks behind the scenes from a maintainer’s perspective. One year on, I thought it might be interesting to share an update on that.

Who I am and what the project is and does was covered previously and hasn’t really changed. In short, I’m the Yocto Project’s primary technical lead. The project allows people/companies to build and maintain customized Linux and open source software in general in a scalable and maintainable way.

Who is using it? We often don’t know!

As the project continues to grow in usage, we keep finding out about new and interesting places it is being used. This is really exciting and what the project was designed for, so it is wonderful to see. The sad thing is that we can’t really talk about a lot of the usage. In some cases we find out by looking at the license compliance “bill of materials” that companies share. It is usually clear looking at the versions/names of the components that it is likely OpenEmbedded/Yocto Project derived but there is nothing we can quote to show that definitively. It is hard to demonstrate project usage or importance when you don’t know or can’t say who is using it. If you are using it, please let us say that you are! Please drop us an email or you can add to the list on our wiki.

Since last year the project has gained several members, some of them joining after reading the previous article and realizing the challenges the project was facing. This is great to see and really appreciated. The economic situation, globally and in this industry, hasn’t passed the project by and we have lost some members or some have downgraded, too.

The increased membership and participation has meant that the project can balance its budget and not forecast a deficit, hoping things will work out ok. For me personally, that does mean my job has a bit more security too; I’m not wondering if I’ll need to find a different income source in a few months. This also makes it easier for the project to retain some of our key help for things like documentation or maintaining our LTS releases. The time taken in training those people to the roles is not something which can be easily or quickly replaced so retention is important.

Sovereign Tech Fund support

The big news in the last year for us was finding that we could get some help from the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), a German government funded initiative that is trying to help projects and the overall open software ecosystem. They read the article and wanted to see if there was a way to work together and help. The project had already been working on a five year plan, basically an open-ended discussion of where we’d like to see the project in five years’ time and what kinds of things might we like to see happen in that time frame. We found that we could take some of the themes from that plan and have financial help to bring them to reality.

Funding comes with constraints and it has been a challenge to do things in the time frame needed, but by contracting the work through many of the consultancies working within our ecosystem, we’ve been able to quickly pull together some amazing changes.

The projects we targeted were a mix across a spectrum of topics. Some are future looking with things like IDE integration into newer IDEs like VSCode. Some add automated testing to older code like Toaster, meaning we can stop it bit-rotting and degrading and start planning ways to better use it in the future. There was work to improve the developer experience both within our tools such as better understanding why cache objects (“sstate”) weren’t being reused, through to re-enabling patch submission/review processes automated CI-style helpers. There was also work done on properly documenting our security processes and preparing the project for the next generation of SPDX which is key to our Software Bill of Materials (SBoM) support.

Other projects include tool improvements to demonstrate and roll them out to other layers in the wider project ecosystem. Taking processes, techniques, and tools we have in the core and showing other layer maintainers how they can take advantage of them leads to wider ecosystem improvements in quality and productivity. We also have projects underway to explore the topic of binary packages in a source-based distro world and to look at ways we could improve our initial setup and user experience. Separate from the STF work, the project was also able to fund some improvements to the layer index but that wouldn’t have happened without the STF funding for other areas. The layer index works like a search engine for the project so it is of key importance to most of our users.

There were multiple good things to come out of all this work besides just the work itself. It meant that multiple members of the community were able to work on things that they have wanted to for a long time, knowing the benefit to everyone yet being unable to find a sponsor to allow them to spend that time. It also helped raise developer experience in a number of key areas, something we were conscious we were lacking.

I’d also note that the work was carefully planned to include and prioritize test automation so that as well as fixing fundamental issues, we’re better placed to avoid some of these issues in the future, too.

Maintainer/developer resourcing issues remain

All this sounds really positive, and it most definitely is, but there was a bit of a darker side too. The core of the project was stretched thin and I remain the only full time developer at the core. Much of the writing and technical execution of the contracts therefore fell to me. I did realize this was likely to happen but the opportunity to fix so many of these long-term issues meant that I opted to push through it and make it happen. While I don’t regret it, I doubt I could sustain doing anything like this again.

The project has talked about “the bus factor” problem it has for a long time, and I’ve grown quite used to being hit by metaphorical buses in meeting discussions. In some ways I’m not as worried about this as I once was. Both Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded both have structures in place allowing a clear path to making decisions and those would work to allow the roles I fill to be replaced. It is ironic that when things are running relatively smoothly, people actually question the need for those structures, often not realizing that the time they really come into their own are in times of crisis.

The real concern now is one of scaling and overload and this is probably the key problem the project now needs to find solutions for. Funding is one challenge to improving this, it becomes an easier problem to solve if that is less constrained. The second challenge is the project has tried several times to write a job description for someone to shadow/assist/help me in various ways and we’ve struggled every time as my role within the project has so many hats and the skill sets overlap into what are traditionally different roles. When you add together the project and programme management pieces, the technical architecture oversight and vision, the bug fixing, general development skills, community relations and business relations pieces, good QA engineering skills and general operational execution, it gets complicated. The closest we’ve come was realizing that we needed both deeply technical programme management/execution and general but highly skilled development engineering help for me. This is still an ongoing discussion, so let us know if you have ideas!

Relevance in the wider open source ecosystem

There is a significant lack of understanding and recognition of what the project can actually do for the wider ecosystem and also for specific enablement. An interesting example is RISC-V support within the project. There has been community-driven support added over the last few years and it does basically work but the architecture has not been tested on our CI systems. The main reason for that is that those systems are high cost and maintenance, funded by the project membership and RISC-V does not have enough representation there. We’ve actively sought out platinum or multiple gold member participation from RISC-V interested parties but sadly there hasn’t been any commitment. The RISC-V story is particularly unfortunate since the project is about to release its next LTS which only happens every two years and it won’t be on the test matrix.

Besides the LTS, the project is extremely efficient at bringing in new versions of FOSS components as they become available when those upstream projects make releases. There is particular value in testing those on more unusual architectures such as RISC-V as early as you can, at the point of entry into the project and the wider ecosystem. By doing that it doesn’t just help Yocto Project support but also that support in other distributions too. We’re clearly struggling to showcase the huge benefit this has!

I’d also like to highlight another key feature of the project, which is the ability for users to own and control their entire build process. This means users don’t have dependencies on other companies or public services and that years from now, they have the ability to rebuild the software shipping in your products. Several recent examples of changes in availability of software or services, such as the structural changes around Fedora/CentOS, have made some users ask very valid questions about their reliance on other companies and their ability to “control their own destiny”. Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded were built to be able to solve that problem and there is no lock-in or reliance on others necessary.

Two other related areas the project has been able to help make step change improvements in is reproducibility and software manifests. For reproducibility we’ve worked with various upstreams to ensure the tooling is able to support it well (through compiler options for example) and that upstream software stops encoding things like build paths into binary output. For software manifest support, the project was proud to help test elements of the upcoming SPDX 3.0 standard to ensure some of the usage issues of the previous versions are addressed and that it fits well in a software build environment. With recent developments like the European Cyber Resilience Act and with similar changes already present or coming in other jurisdictions, being able to comply easily with these through good tooling and processes will be key.

Availability of developers

The huge demand for Yocto Project/OpenEmbedded skilled engineers does have one other rather unfortunate impact on the project core. That demand is great for ensuring people in the project have employment, however because the skills are scarce, they often aren’t allowed time to contribute to “upstream” or back to the project core. Understandably, they may also be asked to prioritize work on product specific layers in preference to core code and overall project architecture. The “layer” approach the project takes in some ways makes this much easier to do, too.

While understandable, the loss of access to people’s knowledge, and their ability to help work on bugs or improvements, is another significant challenge for us which I’m not sure how to address at this time.

Summary

All in all, the last year has been really positive. The STF involvement was a very welcome surprise and we’ve achieved great things. Reading the article from a year ago, it is nice to be able to say that we’ve moved forward or even resolved some of those topic areas. Challenges remain though, particularly around participation in the project (both financial/membership and developer) if we’re to improve the overload problem.

Some of these issues are not unique to the Yocto Project and are faced by many open source projects. Regardless, I feel that we do need to be open about the issues even if we don’t have good solutions yet. While we don’t want to alienate our current developer community and maintainers, we’re trying to be open to new approaches and ideas, so please do get in touch if you think there is a way forward that we’re missing!

About the author: Richard Purdie is the Yocto Project architect and a Linux Foundation Fellow.

March 28, 2024

Empowering Digital Security: Your Comprehensive Guide to Navigating the EU Cyber Resilience Act with Exein

By Megan KnightBlog, Featured

The new EU Cyber Resilience Act is a big step towards better digital product security, aimed at protecting both consumers and businesses. This new rule from the European Commission covers the whole life of digital products, making sure they’re secure from start to finish. We want to make all digital stuff in the EU safer.

We’ve collaborated with Exein, a leading embedded systems cybersecurity company, to create a guide for developers.

This guide is easy to use. It explains the Act and what it means for your projects. It’s written by experts in embedded systems and cybersecurity, and turns the Act’s complex rules into clear, practical advice.

You don’t need to sign up to get our guide. It’s free and open to anyone who wants to know more about the Cyber Resilience Act and what it means for cybersecurity.

Click the button below to get your free copy of the guide. Start learning about the Cyber Resilience Act and how it affects your work.

Download the Embedded Developers Guide to CRA

December 14, 2023

Latest Release, New Gold Member Witekio, and Virtual Summit

By Megan KnightBlog, Featured

The Yocto Project, an open source collaborative project helping developers create custom Linux-based systems, today announced the release of Nanbield 4.3. Announced on the heels of a recent funding boost provided to the Yocto Project from Sovereign Tech Fund, the release of Nanbield 4.3 features a host of new improvements, including security process improvements, year 2038 time fixes for 32 bit systems, prebuilt artifacts to accelerate builds and a new contributors guide along with all the usual component updates to integrate together the changes from hundreds of other upstream open source projects.

The excitement continues with the welcomed addition of Witekio as a Yocto Project Gold Member, joining Automotive Grade Linux, Huawei, Renesas, Siemens, and Texas Instruments. As a Member, Witekio brings its history of delivering innovative embedded systems and products to Yocto Project in addition to donating advocacy efforts.

“Advocacy and Training are critical functions of open source projects that tend to receive less fanfare than other project functions,” said Richard Purdie, Yocto Project Lead Architect and Linux Foundation Fellow. “Witekio brings expertise and funding, enabling us to do more on behalf of our community. Witekio’s involvement will increase project visibility and provide more opportunities to connect with the community through webinars and events.”

“We are incredibly proud to be recognised as a Gold Member of the Yocto Project.” stated Samir Bounab, CEO of Witekio. “This partnership highlights our unwavering commitment to open source software, which enables us to provide our clients with cutting-edge embedded and IoT solutions. We look forward to contributing to the Yocto Project’s growth and sharing our expertise with the community.”

Witekio’s own Pierre Gal will give a talk about elevating product quality with automated testing at next week’s Yocto Project Virtual Summit (November 28 – 30, 2023) alongside fellow community speakers in beginner and advanced tracks. Security expert Marta Rybczynska will provide updates on Yocto Project security and changes in tooling including the CVE scanning process, SBOM generation with SPDX, default options, and more. Registration is USD$40 – the full schedule and registration is available here: https://summit.yoctoproject.org/yocto-project-summit-2023-11/

November 22, 2023

Yocto Project Announces Latest Release, New Gold Member Witekio, and Details for Virtual Summit Next Week

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/yocto-welcomes-witekio-as-gold-member-announces-virtual-summit-new-release

November 22, 2023

Sovereign Tech Fund Boosts Yocto Project to Help Drive Open Source Excellence

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/sovereign-tech-fund-boosts-yocto-project

October 10, 2023

Sovereign Tech Fund Boosts Yocto Project

By Megan KnightBlog, Featured

New funding from the Sovereign Tech Fund will help the Yocto Project drive significant transformation

The Yocto Project is a powerful and versatile open source initiative that offers a comprehensive set of tools and metadata, enabling developers to easily construct custom operating systems. With recently announced financial support from the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), Yocto Project will drive significant transformation in the open source community. nstead of relying on pre-compiled binaries, the Yocto Project allows for creating tailored Linux images easily targeted to a specific device’s hardware architecture. This flexibility makes it an invaluable resource for a wide range of applications, from embedded systems to Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

“Without fanfare, Yocto Project touches most people’s lives without their knowledge,” notes Richard Purdie, lead Architect at Yocto Project. “At least half the world’s internet traffic passes through routers built using Yocto. Add in mobile phone masts, software in cars, software inside core server components, and there are billions of devices all around us that are relied upon every day, making it a key piece of easily overlooked critical infrastructure software.”

The Significance of the Yocto Project and openembedded

While the Yocto Project may not be visible to end-users, its importance is undeniable. It is the foundational software infrastructure for numerous industries, including automotive, medical technology, consumer electronics, and telecommunications. Companies like BMW Group, OpenBMC, and many operating system vendors depend on the Yocto Project to build their products. This underscores its critical role in developing connected cars, servers, communication base stations, and more.

Automotive Grade Linux utilizes Yocto Project to create the AGL Unified Code Base (UCB), which is used by member companies in various connected car models. BMW Group also uses the software in some of its vehicles. The OpenBMC project uses the Yocto Project as a foundation and is, in turn, used by many hardware manufacturers in their servers (Dell, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, and others). Some operating system vendors also build their products on Yocto Project, supplying telecommunications companies that use Yocto Project, for example, in communication base stations.

Yocto Project has a close relationship with OpenEmbedded, the build architecture the project has adopted. Build architecture or framework describes the comprehensive set of compatible tools, scripts, metadata, and recipes that OpenEmbedded provides to simplify and automate constructing customized Linux distributions. Using this framework enables modularity, customization, and flexibility for developers.

There is an OpenEmbedded community and non-profit organization which oversees that architecture and technology. It doesn’t have member funding like the Yocto Project, so the Yocto Project has funded much of the work on OpenEmbedded. The two projects share codebases such as BitBake and OpenEmbedded-Core, so work on one directly benefits the other. Due to the ability to build everything from source including the toolchain, OpenEmbedded has often found uses in academic and research and development environments since it allows unconstrained experimentation at all levels of the source code. Many of the activities commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Fund contribute to OpenEmbedded-Core and thus to the many open source communities that build on it.

The funded work improves the long-term sustainability of the project by attracting a new generation of developers.

The Sovereign Tech Fund: A Game Changer

As IoT and embedded systems evolve, the need for specialized engineers to work on the Yocto Project becomes increasingly critical. Additionally, the Yocto Project shares codebases with OpenEmbedded, further emphasizing the need for investment in both projects. Recognizing the importance of the Yocto Project, the Sovereign Tech Fund has stepped in with a mission to enhance its efficiency, security, user experience, and developer engagement.

According to Purdie, “While the Yocto Project is widely used and depended upon, new technology projects tend to attract much more attention, and I’m heartened to see the Sovereign Tech Fund focusing on helping key pieces of infrastructure within the Yocto Project. The significant benefit we bring is that we can ripple the benefits and improvements out through entire ecosystems quickly and effectively, building on one of our founding principles: sharing and allowing collaboration on – and reuse of – processes and technology.”

The Sovereign Tech Fund’s support will be channeled into several key areas of development:

1. Build Process and Workflow Improvements:

Core workflow improvements, including enhancements to build tooling and workflows.
Development of the Yocto Project Reference Binary Distribution, focusing on workflow improvements and policies.
Introduction of Patchtest, an automated testing tool for code patches submitted via mailing lists.

2. Security and Quality Improvements:

Strengthening security processes and the security team.
Advancing Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) for improved transparency.
Addressing tooling issues and enhancing quality-of-life features in Devtool, Recipetool, and Pseudo.

3. Integration and Usability Enhancements:

Updates and improvements to Toaster, a web-based UI for BitBake.
Integration of VSCode with Yocto Project for enhanced developer features and usability.

4. Layer Management Standardization:

Integration of OpenEmbedded Core best practices into Meta-OpenEmbedded.
Development of standard tools for managing Yocto layers, promoting layer tooling standardization.

Securing the Future of Yocto Project

The new resources provided by the Sovereign Tech Fund marks a pivotal moment in the Yocto Project’s journey. By addressing core workflow, security, integration, and layer management, this funding ensures the long-term sustainability of the project. Moreover, it creates an environment that is welcoming to new developers, encouraging them to contribute and eventually become maintainers.

On the matter of Yocto’s future, Purdie says, “With our increasing attention to security and requirements like software manifests, Yocto Project continues to provide solutions that are secure and innovative. Through this work and through collaboration with projects like SPDX the Yocto Project is well placed to deliver solutions that meet or exceed legislation requirements and allow us to take software accountability, security and update solutions to the next level along with leading developments in areas like software reproducibility.”

In Conclusion

The Yocto Project, with its source-based approach and wide-ranging applications, is a cornerstone of open source development. The Sovereign Tech Fund’s commitment to bolstering this project is a testament to its importance within the software ecosystem. As the Yocto Project undergoes these vital improvements, it continues to provide the foundation for countless industries and developers to build innovative and secure solutions. With these developments, the Yocto Project is poised to thrive and remain at the forefront of open source technology for years to come.

About the Sovereign Tech Fund

The Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructure in the public interest. Its goal to strengthen the open source ecosystem sustainably, focusing on security, resilience, technological diversity, and the people behind the code. STF is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK) and hosted at and supported by the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation GmbH (SPRIND).

October 10, 2023

Klepsydra AI – Cloud detection onboard from space

By josefBlog, Featured

Snapshot: Klepsydra OBPMark-ML Cloud Detection Demo in Progress

Klepsydra AI – Cloud detection onboard from space with a custom Linux distribution built by the Yocto Project

What is Cloud detection?

Cloud detection is a crucial process in Earth Observation used to identify and mask clouds in satellite imagery. This is necessary because clouds can obstruct the view of the Earth’s surface, making it difficult to accurately interpret and analyse the data.

Cloud detection algorithms typically use a combination of spectral and spatial information to differentiate between clouds and other features in the imagery. For instance, they may utilize information from various wavelengths of light to distinguish between clouds and land or water surfaces. They may also use contextual information, such as the size and shape of features in the image, to aid in cloud identification.

Once clouds are detected, they can be masked or removed from the image so that the underlying land or water surface can be analysed. This is important for a wide range of applications, including land use and land cover mapping, crop monitoring, and climate studies.

Cloud detection is also utilised in real-time applications such as weather forecasting and disaster management, where monitoring cloud cover and its changes over time is crucial. In these applications, cloud detection algorithms can track the movement and formation of clouds, providing valuable information for predicting weather patterns and identifying areas that may be impacted by natural disasters.

Klepsydra AI Excels Beyond Tensorflow Lite in Performance

Cloud detection onboard

Performing cloud detection onboard Earth Observation satellite offers several benefits over performing cloud detection on the ground:

Faster response time: Cloud detection onboard the satellite enables near real-time detection and removal of clouds, which is particularly useful for time-critical applications such as weather forecasting and disaster response.
Reduced data transmission: Transmitting large amounts of satellite imagery data to the ground can be expensive and time-consuming. By performing cloud detection onboard, only the useful data (i.e. data without clouds) needs to be transmitted to the ground, reducing data transmission costs.
Improved data quality: Cloud detection onboard the satellite can result in improved data quality because the detection algorithms can take into account the unique characteristics of the satellite’s sensors and the viewing geometry. This can result in more accurate and reliable cloud detection.
Increased availability of cloud-free data: By performing cloud detection onboard, the satellite can provide a higher percentage of cloud-free data, which is particularly important for applications such as land use and land cover mapping, crop monitoring, and climate studies.
Improved efficiency of downstream processing: Cloud detection onboard the satellite can improve the efficiency of downstream processing by reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed on the ground. This can lead to faster and more accurate analysis of the data.

In Collaboration with ESA, Barcelona Supercomputing Center developed OBPMark-ML’s Cloud Detection Algorithm

KATESU project

The current commercial version of Klepsydra AI has successfully passed validation in an ESA activity called KATESU for Teledyne e2v’s LS1046 and Xilinx ZedBoard onboard computers, achieving outstanding performance results. During this activity, two DNN algorithms provided by ESA, CME and OBPMark-ML, were tested.

Onboard cloud detection is important to filter images that are sent to ground.

Klepsydra on a custom Linux distribution built by the Yocto Project

The Yocto Project is an umbrella organization for a number of open-source technologies which simplify the process of building and customizing Linux-based operating systems for embedded devices. It provides a flexible and scalable infrastructure, enabling developers to create highly optimized and tailored Linux distributions for their specific embedded systems.

In Klepsydra, the Yocto Project plays a crucial role in our workflow, particularly when it comes to generating Linux images for our LS1046 based computer. To begin, we set the necessary Yocto Project build tools up and configure the build system to specifically target our desired hardware platform. This ensures that the resulting Linux image is optimized and compatible with our LS1046 device.

To tailor the Linux kernel and other system components to our specific requirements, we create custom Yocto Project recipes. These recipes allow us to incorporate the necessary changes and optimizations, ensuring that the resulting Linux image is finely tuned to meet our needs. Additionally, we introduce the meta-virtualization layer to our Yocto Project setup, which enables us to include Docker in the final root filesystem of the generated image.

Once the build has been configured and our customizations have been applied, the next step is to generate the Linux image for our target platform. This involves compiling and packaging all the requiredcomponents, including the kernel, device drivers, libraries, and applications, into a deployable image file. This image file can then be flashed onto an SD card, effectively preparing it for booting Linux on our LS1046 device.

With the Linux image successfully booted on the target platform, we proceed to create the necessary Docker image directly on the LS1046 device. Leveraging the Docker capabilities provided by the meta-virtualization layer, we prepare a Docker image that encapsulates the specific software, dependencies, and configurations required for our testing purposes.

Once the Docker image is prepared, we launch a container from it on the target device. This container serves as a controlled environment where we can perform various tests and evaluations on the LS1046 device. By executing tests within the container, we can isolate and evaluate specific functionalities or scenarios, ensuring the reliability and performance of our software on the target platform.

Demo online

https://klepsydra.com/klepsydra-ai-esa-obmark-ml-online-demo-ii-the-cloud-detection-dnn/

The demo showcases the Cloud Detection DNN model executed on three identical computers, each with a different optimisation. The first computer runs Klepsydra optimised for latency (kpsr.lat), the second uses TensorFlow Lite, and the third uses Klepsydra optimised for CPU (kpsr.cpu).

Klepsydra AI demonstrates remarkable elasticity and high-performance capabilities. The kpsr.lat configuration can process up to two times more images per second than TensorFlow Lite, while kpsr.cpu processes the same number of images as TensorFlow Lite but with fewer CPU resources. These improvements are evident in both the Intel and ARM versions of the demo.

In summary, Klepsydra AI provides customers with a unique capability to adapt to their specific needs, whether it be latency, CPU, RAM, or throughput. This feature makes Klepsydra AI highly suitable for onboard AI applications such as Earth Observation onboard data processing and compression, vision-based navigation for in-orbit servicing, and lunar landing.

Acknowledgments

This demo was prepared as part of ESA’s KATESU project to evaluate Klepsydra AI for Space use. For further information on this project, please refer to https://klepsydra.com/klepsydra-ai-technology-evaluation-space-use/.

The OBPMark-ML DNN was provided to Klepsydra by courtesy of ESA. This algorithm is part of ESA’s OBPMark framework (https://obpmark.github.io/). For further information on this framework, please contact OBPMark@esa.int.

August 4, 2023

Yocto Project at Embedded Open-Source Summit 2023

By michaeloBlog

The Yocto Project was present at the Embedded Open-Source Summit, which took place in Prague, Czech Republic, between June 26 and 30, 2023.

The Yocto Project Dev Day, the first edition since 2019, was a big success, and was sold out. We even had to add tables at the back of the room at the end!

Slides and videos for the talks are now available:

Introduction and Welcome, David Reyna, Josef Holzmayr, Megan Knight: slides, video
Why is my build so slow?, Ross Burton: slides, video
Updates of Yocto-Based Projects: Effective strategies for ongoing maintenance, Tomasz Żyjewski: slides, video
meta-virtualization: moving past source-only, basic containers, Bruce Ashfield: slides, video
Customize your CROPS containers with crops-generator, Tim Orling, Eilís ‘pidge’ Ní Fhlannagáin: slides, video
Dos And Don’ts When Using A Yocto-based BSP: Case Studies, Mohammed Billoo: slides, video
Yocto Project Q&A, Khem Raj
Common design mistakes and suggested better practices, Enguerrand de Ribaucourt: slides, video
Unveiling OpenBMC: Exploring features and preparing the build environment, Tomasz Żyjewski, Maciej Pijanowski: slides, video
linux-yocto: quietly providing base kernel integration supportM: Bruce Ashfield: slides, video
Quick Development Cycles with NFS-Root: A Prototype Tool, Enrico Jörns: slides, video
Dog + Doom = Demo, Josef Holzmayr: video
We are “The Next Generation”, Josef Holzmayr: video
Self paced hands-on classes, David Reyna: slides 1, slides 2

A major announcement was also made on that day, extending the current and future Long Term Support (LTS) releases to 4 years. This guarantees that there will be sufficient overlap between such releases, and that device makers can rely on one release for up to 4 years.

Timeline of Yocto Project releases

There were at least four talks related to the Yocto Project at Embedded Linux Conference on the following days, and a well attended Birds of a Feather (BoF) session too:

Yocto Project/OpenEmbedded Meets Security, Marta Rybczynska, Syslinbit: slides, video
Setting up Yocto Layers and Builds with Official Tools — 2023 Edition, Alexander Kanavin, Linutronix: slides, video
The Yocto Project — Where We’re Going and What’s Next, Philip Balister, The Yocto Project: slides, video
Tracking Vulnerabilities with Buildroot and Yocto, Arnout Vandecappelle, Mind: slides, video
BoF: The Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded Organization, Philip Balister, OpenEmbedded & Josef Holzmayr, Mender.io: slides, video

Though not very crowded, we still had a constant stream of people passing by and chatting with our volunteers at the Yocto Project booth. This was an opportunity to see new faces, mostly people already using the Yocto Project.

Special thanks to Andy, Ross, and Philip, Josef and Megan who dedicated a lot of time to this booth, and to all the others who helped too.

We are happy to have new members joining the project. This forces us to print new banners at event events, but that’s a minor constraint, as members are critical to securing funding and engineering resources for the project.

Last but not least, the next edition of the Yocto Project Summit, an on-line event as usual, will take place on Nov 28-30, 2023. There should be one day of hands-on and training, and two days of sessions. We will start organizing this event from the end of August. Stay tuned on https://summit.yoctoproject.org.

Waiting for the next time we can meet in person, we are grateful for the Linux Foundation for hiring a professional photographer and sharing the below pictures of these memorable moments spent together…

Yocto Project booth