Architecture exploration for high-integrated and low-cost avionic systems

Digital avionics systems of today are designed for the most part with embedded computers. These computers run safety-critical real-time applications such as flight management systems (FMS) and flight control systems (FCS). Even if avionics use conservative technologies, economic concerns are constantly pushing for changes. Space, weight, power and cooling (SWaP-C) considerations are gaining importance in the aviation industry. High fuel and maintenance costs encourage aircraft manufacturers to reduce the footprint of new models. For many years, avionics systems have been designed to run a single application on dedicated hardware in tightly coupled hardware/software architecture. These federated systems are no longer economical, given the duplication of hardware they incur. Modern airplanes like the Airbus A-380 use Integrated and Modular Avionic (IMA) architecture to reduce the footprint of new avionics systems by combining several applications within a single computer hardware unit. The interns in this project will work on the IMA development environment and design a platform demonstrator to help our partners make the right decisions regarding architectural tradeoff and optimization.

Faculty Supervisor:

Drs. Guy Bois and Jean-François Boland

Student:

Multiple

Partner:

CMC Electronics Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering - computer / electrical

Sector:

Aerospace and defense

University:

Polytechnique Montréal