Autonomous peripherals integration for an adaptive avionics platform

Abstract

Integrated avionics platforms (IMA) provide cost and weight savings compared to federated systems. Drawback of the integrated architecture is an increased configuration demand. Current systems face this demand with individually created and distributed configuration files, causing an enormous configuration effort. This effort should be significantly reduced by introducing adaptivity. Adaptivity refers to the autonomous adaption of the platform resources and autonomous integration of systems, including peripheral devices. The proposed adaptive avionics platform approach comprises an open software architecture and autonomous mechanisms for discovering and adapting the generic platform components. It provides computing, communication and i/o resources for integrating avionic systems, including peripheral devices. Whereby the platform's complexity is transparent for integrated system functions. Peripheral devices that comply to a specific PnP-protocol are integrated fully autonomously. Peripheral devices that do not comply to the PnP-protocol are considered using an adaption tool. This requires minimal human interaction but obviates individual configuration files. The substitution of manually prepared configuration files by an autonomous adaption mechanism reduces the configuration effort significantly. The feasibility of the adaptive avionics platform approach is demonstrated with a laboratory validation system.