Thesis (M.S.)--University of Iowa, 2007. / Supervisor: Thomas Schnell. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 115).

The aim of this study is to propose an alternative approach in prognostics for airborne avionics system in order to enhance maintenance process and aircraft availability. The objectives are to analyse the dependency of avionic systems for fault propagation behaviour degradation, research and develop methods to predict the remaining useful life of avionics Line Replaceable Units (LRU), research and develop methods to evaluate and predict the degradation performances of avionic systems, and lastly to develop software simulation systems to evaluate methods developed. One of the many stakeholders in the aircraft lifecycle includes the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) industry. The predictable logistics process to some degree as an outcome of IVHM gives benefit to the MRO industry. In this thesis, a new integrated numerical methodology called ‘System Level Airborne Avionic Prognostics’ or SLAAP is developed; looking at a top level solution in prognostics. Overall, this research consists of two main elements. One is to thoroughly understand and analyse data that could be utilised. Secondly, is to apply the developed methodology using the enhanced prognostic methodology. Readily available fault tree data is used to analyse the dependencies of each component within the LRUs, and performance were simulated using the linear Markov Model to estimate the time to failure. A hybrid approach prognostics model is then integrated with the prognostics measures that include environmental factors that contribute to the failure of a system, such as temperature. This research attempts to use data that is closest to the data available in the maintenance repair and overhaul industry. Based on a case study on Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS), the prognostics methodology developed showed a sufficiently close approximation to the Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) data supplied by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). This validation gives confidence that the proposed methodology will achieve its objectives and it should be further developed for use in the systems design process.

This thesis compares different mixed integer programming (MIP) formulations for sequencing of tasks in the context of avionics scheduling. Sequencing is a key concern in many discrete optimisation problems, and there are numerous ways of accomplishing sequencing with different MIP formulations. A scheduling tool for avionic systems has previously been developed in a collaboration between Saab and Linköping University. This tool includes a MIP formulation of the scheduling problem where one of the model components has the purpose to sequence tasks. In this thesis, this sequencing component is replaced with other MIP formulations in order to study whether the computational performance of the scheduling tool can be improved. Different scheduling instances and objective functions have been used when performing the tests aiming to evaluate the performances, with the computational times of the entire avionic scheduling model determining the success of the different MIP formulations for sequencing. The results show that the choice of MIP formulation makes a considerable impact on the computational performance and that a significant improvement can be achieved by choosing the most suitable one.

The development of the next generation of Saab's multirole combat aircraft the JAS 39 Gripen includes developing a lot of new software for the aircraft's on-board computers. The new software has to be loaded into these computers routinely, in order to carry out testing on it. This is currently a slow and tedious process. In order to load the computers a protocol defined in the ARINC 615A standard is used. Today Saab uses commercial software applications implementing this protocol for the loading process. These applications have significant disadvantages, such as not being able to load several computers in parallel or only being able to load computers from a specific manufacturer. In this thesis we introduce a system using a client-server architecture that allows users to load the computers in parallel, regardless of the manufacturer. In Section 3.2.2 we show that our system reduces the time required to load the aircraft's on-board computers significantly. We also indicate some improvements that can be made in order to speed up the process even further. These improvements mainly involve improving the on-board computers themselves through the use of faster persistent storage and support for later revisions of the protocol involved.

The purpose of this research is to investigate fault management methodologies within Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) systems, and develop techniques by which the use of dynamic reconfiguration can be implemented to restore higher levels of systems redundancy in the event of a systems fault. A proposed concept of dynamic configuration has been implemented on a test facility that allows controlled injection of common faults to a representative IMA system. This facility allows not only the observation of the response of the system management activities to manage the fault, but also analysis of real time data across the network to ensure distributed control activities are maintained. IMS technologies have evolved as a feasible direction for the next generation of avionic systems. Although federated systems are logical to design, certify and implement, they have some inherent limitations that are not cost beneficial to the customer over long life-cycles of complex systems, and hence the fundamental modular design, i.e. common processors running modular software functions, provides a flexibility in terms of configuration, implementation and upgradability that cannot be matched by well-established federated avionic system architectures. For example, rapid advances of computing technology means that dedicated hardware can become outmoded by component obsolescence which almost inevitably makes replacements unavailable during normal life-cycles of most avionic systems. To replace the obsolete part with a newer design involves a costly re-design and re-certification of any relevant or interacting functions with this unit. As such, aircraft are often known to go through expensive mid-life updates to upgrade all avionics systems. In contrast, a higher frequency of small capability upgrades would maximise the product performance, including cost of development and procurement, in constantly changing platform deployment environments. IMA is by no means a new concept and work has been carried out globally in order to mature the capability. There are even examples where this technology has been implemented as subsystems on service aircraft. However, IMA flexible configuration properties are yet to be exploited to their full extent; it is feasible that identification of faults or failures within the system would lead to the exploitation of these properties in order to dynamically reconfigure and maintain high levels of redundancy in the event of component failure. It is also conceivable to install redundant components such that an IMS can go through a process of graceful degradation, whereby the system accommodates a number of active failures, but can still maintain appropriate levels of reliability and service. This property extends the average maintenance-free operating period, ensuring that the platform has considerably less unscheduled down time and therefore increased availability. The content of this research work involved a number of key activities in order to investigate the feasibility of the issues outlined above. The first was the creation of a representative IMA system and the development of a systems management capability that performs the required configuration controls. The second aspect was the development of hardware test rig in order to facilitate a tangible demonstration of the IMA capability. A representative IMA was created using LabVIEW Embedded Tool Suit (ETS) real time operating system for minimal PC systems. Although this required further code written to perform IMS middleware functions and does not match up to the stringent air safety requirements, it provided a suitable test bed to demonstrate systems management capabilities. The overall IMA was demonstrated with a 100kg scale Maglev vehicle as a test subject. This platform provides a challenging real-time control problem, analogous to an aircraft flight control system, requiring the calculation of parallel control loops at a high sampling rate in order to maintain magnetic suspension. Although the dynamic properties of the test rig are not as complex as a modern aircraft, it has much less stringent operating requirements and therefore substantially less risk associated with failure to provide service. The main research contributions for the PhD are: 1. A solution for the dynamic reconfiguration problem for assigning required systems functions (namely a distributed, real-time control function with redundant processing channels) to available computing resources whilst protecting the functional concurrency and time critical needs of the control actions. 2. A systems management strategy that utilises the dynamic reconfiguration properties of an IMA System to restore high levels of redundancy in the presence of failures. The conclusion summarises the level of success of the implemented system in terms of an appropriate dynamic reconfiguration to the response of a fault signal. In addition, it highlights the issues with using an IMA to as a solution to operational goals of the target hardware, in terms of design and build complexity, overhead and resources.

Lighted push button switches and indicators serve many purposes in cockpits, shipboard applications and military ground vehicles. The quality of lighting produced by switches is vital to operators' understanding of the information displayed. Utilizing LED technology in lighted switches has challenges that can adversely affect lighting quality. Incomplete data exists to educate consumers about potential differences in LED switch performance between different manufacturers. LED switches from four different manufacturers were tested for six attributes of lighting quality: average luminance and power consumption at full voltage, sunlight readable contrast, luminance contrast under ambient sunlight, legend uniformity, and dual-color uniformity. Three of the four manufacturers have not developed LED push button switches that meet lighting quality standards established with incandescent technology.

The content of this work is an overview of precision approach used by GNSS and avionics for operation in low visibility conditions. This thesis describes existing requirements and proposals for new standards that are important to define GBAS performance. The objective of this work is to compare the alternative systems to guide aircraft during precision approach CAT II/III. GBAS operational implementation is additionally devised in this thesis.

Ces travaux portent sur la faisabilité de l'établissement d'un réseau Courant Porteur de Ligne (CPL) pour transmettre des données de maintenance prédictive dans le domaine aéronautique. Le CPL est identifié comme solution afin d'augmenter le nombre d'informations échangées sans modifications du câblage déjà présent dans l'avion. L'approche adoptée au cours de cette thèse porte sur l'adaptation des solutions CPL existantes sur le marché afin qu'elles puissent être déployées sur un réseau avionique classique. Ces modifications doivent respecter les normes aéronautiques qui intègrent notamment sur la protection foudre (DO-160) et les mécanismes de couplage pour assurer la liaison de communication sur les lignes de puissance. Des expérimentations ont été réalisées pour vérifier les performances que les solutions CPLs pourraient attendre en utilisant le ratio signal sur bruit (SNR) comme paramètre de comparaison.Un montage permettant de respecter à la fois la contrainte de protection à la foudre et le fonctionnement des transmissions CPM a été identifié et évalué par le biais de simulations et d’expérimentations en laboratoire. Ce montage nous a permis d'augmenter le SNR de la liaison CPL jusqu'à 40dB. Les circuits de couplage présents sur les modems CPL du commerce ont été optimisés afin de mieux s'adapter à l'environnement aéronautique. La conception de ces circuits sont complètement décrites, dont notamment la réalisation du transformateur HF permettant l'adaptation d'impédance. Une fois les modifications effectuées, nous avons réalisé une série de mesures d’émissions conduites générées les chipsets afin de vérifier leur conformité aux normes CEM DO-160. Les tests ont porté sur des modems classiques et des modems modifiés liés à un équipement classique avionique. Ces tests nous ont montré que, sans les modifications proposées au niveau du circuit de couplage, il est impossible de communiquer sur des lignes fortement bruitées. Dans le cas de bruits générés à la limite de la norme DO-160, notre modem modifié atteint un débit de 46 Mbps en émission et 36 Mbps en réception. Dans cette dernière manipulation, nous atteignons dans un pire cas de perturbations un débit supérieur à celui de notre cahier des charges. / This work focuses on the feasibility of a Power Line Communication (PLC) network for transmitting predictive maintenance data on avionics power lines. PLC is identified as a solution to increase the number of information exchanged without modification of the wiring already present in the aircraft. The approach taken in this thesis deals with the adaptation of existing PLC solutions on the market so that they can be deployed on a conventional avionics network. These modifications include lightning protection and coupling circuits to ensure the communication over the power network. Experiments were conducted to verify the performance that PLC solutions could expect by using the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a comparison paramater.A circuit allowing to respect lightning protection constraints and that allow PLC transmissions has been identified and evaluated by means of simulations and laboratoy experiments. This modificatiosn allowed us to cincrease the SNR of the PLC link up to 40dB. Coulpling circuits on commercial CPL modems have been optimized to better adapt PLC signal to the avionic environment. The design of these circuits is completely described, including the realization of the HF transformer for impedance matching. Once the changes were made, we performed a series of conducted emissions measurements that generated the chipstets to verify their compliance with the CEM DO-160 standarts. The tests focused on conventional modems and modified modems related to conventional avionics equipment. These tests showed us that, without the proposed modifications at the level of the coupling circuit, it is impossible to communicate on very noisy lines. In the case of noise generated at the limit of the DO-160 standart, our modified modem achieves a data rates of 46 Mbps for transmission and 36 Mbps for reception. In this last manipulation, we reach in a worse case of disturbances a data rate higher than the specifications needed.

Requirements verification is typically the costliest part of the systems engineering design process. In the commercial aircraft industry, as the software and hardware design evolves, it must be verified to conform to requirements. In addition, when new design releases are made, regression analysis must be performed which usually requires repeat testing. To streamline verification, a suite of automated verification tools is described in this document which can reduce the test effort. This test suite can be qualified to be used to verify systems at any DO-178B design assurance level. Some of the software tools are briefly described below. There are major advantages of this automated verification effort. The tools can either be internally developed by a company or purchased "off the shelf", depending upon budget and staff constraints. Every automated test case can be run with the click of a button and failures caused by human factors are reduced. The station can be qualified per DO-178B guidelines, and can also be expanded to support ARINC 429, AFDX, Ethernet, and MIL-STD-1553 interfaces. The expansion of these test programs would enable the creation of a universal avionics test suite with minimal cost and a reduction of the overall program verification effort. The following is a presentation of an automated test station capable of reducing verification time and cost. The hardware and software aspects needed to create the test station are examined. Also, steps are provided to help guide a designer through the tool qualification process. Lastly, a full suite of test functions are included that can be implemented and customized to verify a wide range of avionics communication characteristics.

Aircraft developers like other development and manufacturing companies, are experiencing increasing complexity in their products and growing competition in the global market. One way to confront the challenges is to make the development process more efficient and to shorten time to market for new products/variants by using design and development methods based on models. Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is introduced to, in a structured way, support engineers with aids and rules in order to engineer systems in a new way. In this thesis, model based strategies for aircraft and avionics development are studied. A background to avionics architectures and in particular Integrated Modular Avionics is described. The integrating discipline Systems Engineering, MBSE and applicable standards are also described. A survey on available and emerging modeling techniques and tools, such as Hosted Simulation, is presented and Modeling Domains are defined in order to analyze the engineering environment with all its vital parts to support an MBSE approach. Time and money may be saved by using modeling techniques that enable understanding of the engineering problem, state-of-the-art analysis and team communication, with preserved or increased quality and sense of control. Dynamic simulation is an activity increasingly used in aerospace, for several reasons; to prove the product concept, to validate stated requirements, and to verify the final implementation. Simulation is also used for end-user training, with specialized training simulators, but with the same underlying models. As models grow in complexity, and the set of simulation platforms is expanded, new needs for specification, model building and configuration support arise, which requires a modeling framework to be efficient.