2023 | DAKLIF

Over the past few decades, the development cost of complex avionics platforms has steadily increased. The state of the art is Integrated Modular Avionics, which allows computing resources to be shared, but at the cost of a high static configuration overhead. Modern approaches from the IT industry offer promising optimization possibilities here. ILS has advanced the use of Model-Based Systems Engineering in avionics development with the TALIA project, demonstrating that graphical configurations are both feasible and beneficial without incompatibility to the existing tool world.
With the PAFA-ONE project, ILS goes one step further: static configuration tables are a thing of the past. The platform automatically identifies compatible modules and peripherals and dynamically instantiates matching applications. In addition, real-time security analyses and the generation of their artifacts are possible. Within TALIA and INTELWI, concepts for peripheral recognition based on electrical characteristics as well as using TEDS chips were demonstrated - both concepts now allow to use standardized peripherals in self-recognizing platforms.

All these innovative approaches use the Open Avionics Architecture Model - a free meta-model for avionics systems to be used for model-based methods for runtime and development. For both purposes, a qualifiable runtime environment and an automatic tool qualification method have been developed within TALIA.

DaKliF builds on the achievements of the PAFA-ONE, TALIA, and INTELWI projects and optimizes the Plug&Fly concept for CS-25 avionics platforms, in particular IMA platforms. Our main contributions include a protocol for self-description of avionics modules and peripherals, advanced virtualization methods, and automatic configuration and detection. These innovations are aimed at extending the ARINC 653 API.

As a result, the new avionics platform should be able to utilize system resources more optimally and adapted to operational conditions, while significantly reducing costs during software development.