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Aircraft manufacturers for a long time have been looking to reduce the weight of on board equipment to enhance performance both from commercial aspect and from military aspect. The existing wired technology, using cables to connect different on board line replaceable unit apart from increasing the weight also increases the complexity related to electromagnetic interference, installation and maintenance. With continuous technology upgradation in the wireless domain, aviation industry is in the process of using wireless technology for intra-aircraft communication. Wireless technology can meet most of the challenges of modern avionics systems and significantly reduce the weight. This paper aims to look at various aspects of implementing a wireless network including issues related to wired network, aircraft channel, interference issues, suitable wireless protocols for aircraft applications and security aspects.

The paper has relied on literature study on wireless avionics intra-communications (WAIC) and the research work carried out in specific areas related to channel inside an aircraft, interference issues of wireless systems with onboard and external systems operating in the same band and security issues related to wireless network and security requirements of implementing an avionics wireless network (AWN). To identify suitable wireless protocol for AWN literature review and simulation to compare different protocols was carried out.

A single wireless protocol may not be suitable for all aircraft systems, and therefore, there may be a requirement to use multiple technologies. Mutual interference is not expected between WAIC systems with on board and external systems operating in the same band. The channel inside an aircraft is expected to be Rician (LOS) or Rayleigh (NLOS). However, additional measurements may have to be undertaken to have a generalized channel model. Security aspects in an AWN are critical and needs to be analyzed in detail prior to any wireless deployment.

Implementation of wireless technology can pave the way for usage of wireless technology for future generation avionics. With International Telecommunication Union allotting dedicated band for WAIC operations, considerable amount of research has been initiated in this field. It is believed that in the coming 2-3 years, the designers will be ready to replace the existing data wires with wireless transceivers. With radio technical commission for aeronautics and EURACAE involved in development of minimum operations performance standards for WAIC systems use of wireless for intra communication is bound to happen. Therefore, it is necessary to look at different issues for integrating wireless in the avionics domain.

The existing studies have been carried out in individual domains of using wireless in avionics. Separate studies and research work has been carried out for identifying wireless protocols, aircraft channel models, interference issues and security aspects. The paper has attempted to look at all these aspects together including certification.

This paper aims to reveal the authors’ conceptual and experimental work on an innovative avionics paradigm for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

This novel approach stipulates that, rather than being centralized at the autopilot, control of avionics devices is instead distributed among controllers – spread over the airframe span, in response to avionics devices’ natural location requirements. The latter controllers are herein referred to as edge controllers by the first author.

The edge controller manifests increased efficiency in a number of functions, some of which are unburdened from the autopilot. The edge controller establishes a new paradigm of structure and design of small UAVs avionics such that any functionality related to the periphery of the airframe is implemented in the controller.

The research encompasses a workbench prototype testing on a breadboard, as the presented idea is a novel concept. Further, another test has been conducted with four controllers mounted on a quadcopter; results from the vertical attitude sustenance are disclosed herein.

The motivation behind developing this paradigm was the need to position certain avionics devices at different locations on the airframe. Due to their inherent functional requirements, most of these devices have hitherto been placed at the periphery of the aircraft construction.

The current paper describes the novel avionics paradigm, compares it to the standard approach and further reveals two experimental setups with testing results.

All of us, who are working in this highly interesting field of Avionics, have the same feeling of superiority. We all know that our technology is the heart and soul of today's air transport success. We have enough sense of reality to admit, that in the past, starting with the Wright brothers up to the 1950's, Aviation was dominated by aeronautical engineers. We admit that they really did a good construction job on airframes, wings, engines and so on, but the real thing only started when electronic engineers became interested in Aviation. So in order to prove to those who dispute our growing importance, I thought some trend figures on the rapidly increasing avionics investment percentage, of the basic aircraft purchase price, would be simple and definitely convincing.

1993 avionics conference and exhibition: integrated avionics — how far, how fast? — conference proceedings, London, 1–2 December 1993 ERA Report 93–0890, Leatherhead, January 1994. Non‐members £90.00, members £80.00. Not available with a membership voucher

Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) in many sectors of the air transport industry has largely become the assumed way forward for the implementation of future avionics. Progress has already been demonstrated with first generation civil IMA systems such as ELMS and AIMS on the B777. These are quite different implementations, having been optimised for their specific systems domains, and therefore appear to go only some way towards meeting the ultimate goals anticipated by the industry. The promised benefits from the establishment of a suite of standard hardware modules and software interfaces applied commonly across the avionics spectrum, and the expectation of reusing the investment over a number of programmes, appear large and give powerful motivation to fully apply IMA on the next generation of aircraft. However the development and standardisation process still has a long way to go and most of the thrust continues to come from the technical community. There are a number of wider issues and other factors remaining largely undebated but which have important bearing on the extent to which the IMA concept and its promised benefits can be fully realised. The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of these issues and to promote discussion within the industry, i.e. on what may be achieved in practice, and the longer‐term view.

The gradual evolution of the current proposition of integrated modular avionics (IMA) envisages devices catering for the computing power, memory, and interface needs of most, if not all, of an aircraft's data processing functions. They are supplied as standard modules strategically located around the aircraft in racks or cabinets with subdivisions between functions being more in the nature of boundaries between software modules than the separation between boxes in a rack.

Wolverhampton‐based IMI Marston, a wholly owned subsidiary of IMI plc, employs over 500 personnel in five product groups. Its highly successful Aerospace Heat Transfer Group designs and manufactures heat exchangers for a wide marketplace and for a variety of applications. Looks at the increasing complexity of avionics equipment, and the need to dissipate heat in order to maintain a stable operating environment and examines the design, material and process selection in developing materials and products for this sector.

A REVIEW has been made recently by the Electronic Engineering Association of the effects of the Government's recent policies towards the aircraft industry on the British aviation electronics industry and of the prospects for the future in avionics. The British share of this rapidly expanding world market for both aircraft and equipment has decreased in recent years, but the E.E.A. takes the view that if the Government and the industry adopted positive and progressive policies Britain's share of the total market could be more than doubled over the next ten years.