After realizing far reaching automation levels on aircraft, the aeronautics is on the cusp of the 4th revolution, the “smart” and “connected” flight!
New methodologies and approaches are crucial to increase product performance and boost productivity in development, while also maintaining safety levels.
J. P. Potocki De Montalk, "Computer software in civil aircraft," Computer Assurance, 1991. COMPASS '91, Systems Integrity, Software Safety and Process Security. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference on, Gaithersburg, MD, 1991, pp. 10-16.
2012 - EADS Innovation Works: utilization of multi-core systems in partitioned environments
2013 – CASSIDIAN: application of multi-core architectures for a degraded vision landing system for a helicopter
2014 – THALES: design principles of predictable and efficient multi-core systems to meet embedded computer requirements in avionics
2014 - Saab Aeronautics: guaranteeing determinism for avionic applications running on multiple cores and interacting through shared memory
All efforts concentrate on the applicability regarding the safety constraints of the avionics domain.
… how to boost productivity on development?
How can we apply modeling and simulation based approaches for multi-core systems?
Example Case
A TAWS is a flight system (a supervisory controller) that creates visual and aural warnings in order to avoid Controlled Flight into the Terrain.
Basic Modes:
Example Mode 1: the limit altitudes (the reference being the radio altitude) are described as functions of other parameters like airspeed or rate of descent
Enhanced Features:
Terrain Awareness and Display (TAD) provides an image of the surrounding terrain as well as warnings and cautions regarding terrain interactions within the next 60 seconds of flight.
The terrain-based features are implemented using Scilab scripts
The digital elevation database has a resolution of 3 arc seconds (∼90 m)
The conventional model-based design and simulation based verification:
Simulation-based verification:
In the case of the mode 1, testing can be formulated in the form of a vector:
Kaner defines scenario testing as the testing of a credible story that would happen in the real world
Finally, flight tests with DLR‘s A320 pilots are performed on the Flight simulator.