Abstract
Abstract
Traditionally, avionics systems have followed a federated approach - separate software functions allocated to dedicated (often physically disjoint) computing ”black-boxes”. As the transmitted data are involved in process control, the communication architecture between avionics functions is based on three key principles: (1) one source, one line, several receivers, (2) the transmitter does not need to know who receives data, and (3) no time synchronisation between transmitter and receiver. The traditional aeronautical answer to these requirements was the ARINC 429 Digital Information Transfer System: each line has only one source and is connected to every equipment that need the data transmitted by the source, and each data is individually identified (by a label) and sent. The main advantage to such architectures is determinism. However, they often lead to inefficient resource utilisation. In recent years there has been a considerable amount of effort undertaken by ARINC to define standards for Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA). IMA proposes the integration of avionics systems to common resources (computers as well as communication lines and switches).