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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.

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

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.

This study aims to solve the problem that the traditional hierarchically performed hazard origin and propagation studies (HiP-HOPS) cannot make dynamic model for the complex system such as integrated modular avionics (IMA) system.

A new combination method that combines HiP-HOPS with architecture analysis and design language (AADL) is proposed.

The combination method potentially reduces the amount of rework required for safety analysis and modelling of a modified design.

Modelling the IMA system with the combination method can just make qualitative analysis but cannot make quantitative analysis.

The static model depicts the fault propagation among the components while the dynamic model describes the composite fault with AADL for IMA system.

The results of the case study show that the proposed method not only keeps model consistency but also makes safety analysis and modelling for IMA system efficiently.

Integrated modular avionics (IMA) aims to provide highly flexible, reliable and integrated solutions for future aircraft systems which can readily exploit new advances in processor and networking technologies. In this paper, we discuss the problems involved in the provision of appropriate scheduling and timing analysis techniques for IMA systems and suggest a potential solution.

Discusses future trends in avionics architecture and software techniques. Considers the objectives needed for an integrated avionics architecture which is required for the next generation of high‐capacity aircraft with the A3XX in mind.

A recent ERA Technology conference considered the provision of affordable avionics systems in the civil, military and space sectors. Included in the presentations were developments and projects indicating the advances made in each of these fields and the efforts made to design for specific needs. One contribution featured a small jet transport projected by Deutsche Airbus which is intended for service in the latter part of this decade. Cockpit and avionics details were featured for an aircraft seating 90 with a later enlargement to 130 seats envisaged. The configuration is low wing with two turbofan engines.

In modern integrated modular avionics (IMA), it plays an important role to guarantee safety and reliability of the system. The safety and reliability of communication scheduling plays a crucial role in this IMA platforms-based network system. To verify the safety and reliability of the communication scheduling in this network, sufficient and typical test data must be generated to input into the network, obtain and evaluate the corresponding output.

To generate communication scheduling data, this paper presents an iterative communication scheduling data generation algorithm for a configured network of IMA platforms. First, the algorithm generates all possible communication schedules for the first timestamp. Then, constraint is introduced to decrease the quantity of communication schedules to improve the efficiency. The communication schedules are gradually extended to the second timestamp until the final timestamp, i.e. length of communication scheduling sequence.

To verify the efficiency and feasibility of the algorithm, a model is built based on the architecture analysis and design language (AADL) by mapping the correlation time of generated communication scheduling data into task properties. Schedulability is analyzed by loading this model into AADL Inspector. The simulation result illustrates that the proposed algorithm is efficient and feasible.

The proposed method can provide data support for communication scheduling test for the network of IMA platforms.

A constraint-based iterative communication scheduling data generation algorithm is proposed for the network of IMA platforms automatically.