Airbus Avionics Displays
AIRBUS has recently decided to prepare new cockpit displays to improve the cost of ownership of this system and to offer enhanced and new features.
The A320 and A340 families are the targets for the installation of these New cockpit displays which will be, in a second step, widely installed on the other new Airbus families.
The new cockpit displays involve the replacement of the Display Management Computers and the Display Units by new units with a minimum impact on the aircraft.
It will be installed both in forward fit and retrofit conditions.
The new Display Units are no longer CRTs (Cathode Ray Tubes), but LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) flat panels.
The LCD is now a mature technology which presents very good optical performances, even better than the CRTs in sunshine conditions, and a larger display area for the same outside equipment size.
The new cockpit displays will greatly improve the maintenance costs and will provide benefits in terms of necessary volume for their installation, power supply requirement and weight.
The new cockpit displays will, in addition to the conventional flight, navigation, engines, aircraft systems and warnings displays, also introduce new functions -SMGCS (Surface Movement Guidance and Control System) : display of airport maps and aircraft movement on ground, -CDTI (Cockpit Display of Traffic Information) : in-flight traffic surveillance display -CFIT (Controlled Flight into Terrain) : terrain information display -Weather Forecast data display Additional features will be introduced with the new cockpit displays : video recording of the displayed images, hard copy of the display, "windows" like capability : windowing, icons, scroll bars, pointing device, bitmap and 3D displays, ...
The new Display Management Computers and cockpit Displays Units will be based on up to date and powerful technologies featuring new avionics solutions : high throughput processor, large size memory, partitioned software, fast downloading of all the software.
These computers will allow an easy stepped introduction new functions and even further new functions as soon as they are defined.
The technologies selected in this development will be reused in new avionics future architectures as well as the application software which will be fully portable.
Future Avionics: INTEGRATED MODULAR AVIONICS The capacities offered by electronic technologies now enable AIRBUS Industrie to go well beyond the ARINC 600 LRU solutions of the current aircraft families.
The future of avionics is based on integrated modular avionics.
The basic principle is advanced standardization and sharing of resources between several aircraft systems.
In conventional avionics, the main functions are ensured by independent computers which each include a power supply, data acquisition and exchange capacities, processing resources (microprocessor and memory) and resident software supporting the functional software.
Each computer acquires the data it requires.
The various computers are developed independently of each other.
In integrated modular avionics, a rack consisting of modules connected by a backplane bus will accommodate several functions.
The power supply will be common to these functions.
Also, acquisitions will be made once and shared by the various functions that also share common processing resources.
Modular avionics leads to reductions in weight, volume and electrical power consumption.
Apart from the reduction in costs obtained by the sharing of the resources (reduction in onboard electronics), these new concepts also enable a reduction in: - development costs by reducing the number of different items of equipment, - recurring costs by the increased number of equipment of same type, - operating costs by reducing stocks (less onboard equipment), reduction in unjustified removal rate (improvement in reliability, capability to detect and identify failures, fault tolerance enabling deferred maintenance in some cases), - development costs by the independence of the software and hardware, standardization and downloading.
Optimization of data exchanges with the use of multiplexed "high throughput" communication networks as ARINC 629 (2 Mbits/s), ETHERNET (10 Mbits/s) etc.
are associated with these concepts.
The expected advantages are significant.
However, we must not conceal that the sharing of resources between avionics systems comprises a rupture and that new problems concerning the control of the complexity of the interdependencies created between these systems arise: - at the design and certification phase level: the platform common to several systems must be covered by its own specification but must also be considered in the analysis of the various systems (safety and failure mode analysis in particular), - at integration and validation phase level: several functions must be integrated onto a common platform.
Specific means must be developed to enable the development, integration and validation of the various functions to be conducted in parallel, - and on the industrial scale, concerning the sharing of the development between several suppliers: some of them will no longer develop computers but will be limited to supplying application software and peripherals and sensors dedicated to their functions.
Future Airbus avionics Beyond AIM-FANS ( airbus interoperable modular - future air navigation system) and the new cockpit displays, further development of integrated modular avionics concepts implementation will be taken on the AIRBUS aircraft.
Already today, for all new programs, all avionics suppliers work on highly integrated modular avionics platforms.
In the future integration will be considered for the following: - cockpit avionics: flight management, auto-thrust, communication management, data recorders interface, data acquisition systems, health and usage monitoring systems HUMS and air data computers.
- cabin systems: air conditioning, pressurization, temperature control, etc.
, - aircraft utility systems: landing gear, fuel, electrical power, etc.
, in an overall optimization approach to onboard electronics.
The architectures and technologies will allow -an efficient implementation of the functions -a reduction of the cost of ownership of avionics -flexibility and growth potential -easy airline customization -long life duration of the avionics architectures.
The A320 and A340 families are the targets for the installation of these New cockpit displays which will be, in a second step, widely installed on the other new Airbus families.
The new cockpit displays involve the replacement of the Display Management Computers and the Display Units by new units with a minimum impact on the aircraft.
It will be installed both in forward fit and retrofit conditions.
The new Display Units are no longer CRTs (Cathode Ray Tubes), but LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) flat panels.
The LCD is now a mature technology which presents very good optical performances, even better than the CRTs in sunshine conditions, and a larger display area for the same outside equipment size.
The new cockpit displays will greatly improve the maintenance costs and will provide benefits in terms of necessary volume for their installation, power supply requirement and weight.
The new cockpit displays will, in addition to the conventional flight, navigation, engines, aircraft systems and warnings displays, also introduce new functions -SMGCS (Surface Movement Guidance and Control System) : display of airport maps and aircraft movement on ground, -CDTI (Cockpit Display of Traffic Information) : in-flight traffic surveillance display -CFIT (Controlled Flight into Terrain) : terrain information display -Weather Forecast data display Additional features will be introduced with the new cockpit displays : video recording of the displayed images, hard copy of the display, "windows" like capability : windowing, icons, scroll bars, pointing device, bitmap and 3D displays, ...
The new Display Management Computers and cockpit Displays Units will be based on up to date and powerful technologies featuring new avionics solutions : high throughput processor, large size memory, partitioned software, fast downloading of all the software.
These computers will allow an easy stepped introduction new functions and even further new functions as soon as they are defined.
The technologies selected in this development will be reused in new avionics future architectures as well as the application software which will be fully portable.
Future Avionics: INTEGRATED MODULAR AVIONICS The capacities offered by electronic technologies now enable AIRBUS Industrie to go well beyond the ARINC 600 LRU solutions of the current aircraft families.
The future of avionics is based on integrated modular avionics.
The basic principle is advanced standardization and sharing of resources between several aircraft systems.
In conventional avionics, the main functions are ensured by independent computers which each include a power supply, data acquisition and exchange capacities, processing resources (microprocessor and memory) and resident software supporting the functional software.
Each computer acquires the data it requires.
The various computers are developed independently of each other.
In integrated modular avionics, a rack consisting of modules connected by a backplane bus will accommodate several functions.
The power supply will be common to these functions.
Also, acquisitions will be made once and shared by the various functions that also share common processing resources.
Modular avionics leads to reductions in weight, volume and electrical power consumption.
Apart from the reduction in costs obtained by the sharing of the resources (reduction in onboard electronics), these new concepts also enable a reduction in: - development costs by reducing the number of different items of equipment, - recurring costs by the increased number of equipment of same type, - operating costs by reducing stocks (less onboard equipment), reduction in unjustified removal rate (improvement in reliability, capability to detect and identify failures, fault tolerance enabling deferred maintenance in some cases), - development costs by the independence of the software and hardware, standardization and downloading.
Optimization of data exchanges with the use of multiplexed "high throughput" communication networks as ARINC 629 (2 Mbits/s), ETHERNET (10 Mbits/s) etc.
are associated with these concepts.
The expected advantages are significant.
However, we must not conceal that the sharing of resources between avionics systems comprises a rupture and that new problems concerning the control of the complexity of the interdependencies created between these systems arise: - at the design and certification phase level: the platform common to several systems must be covered by its own specification but must also be considered in the analysis of the various systems (safety and failure mode analysis in particular), - at integration and validation phase level: several functions must be integrated onto a common platform.
Specific means must be developed to enable the development, integration and validation of the various functions to be conducted in parallel, - and on the industrial scale, concerning the sharing of the development between several suppliers: some of them will no longer develop computers but will be limited to supplying application software and peripherals and sensors dedicated to their functions.
Future Airbus avionics Beyond AIM-FANS ( airbus interoperable modular - future air navigation system) and the new cockpit displays, further development of integrated modular avionics concepts implementation will be taken on the AIRBUS aircraft.
Already today, for all new programs, all avionics suppliers work on highly integrated modular avionics platforms.
In the future integration will be considered for the following: - cockpit avionics: flight management, auto-thrust, communication management, data recorders interface, data acquisition systems, health and usage monitoring systems HUMS and air data computers.
- cabin systems: air conditioning, pressurization, temperature control, etc.
, - aircraft utility systems: landing gear, fuel, electrical power, etc.
, in an overall optimization approach to onboard electronics.
The architectures and technologies will allow -an efficient implementation of the functions -a reduction of the cost of ownership of avionics -flexibility and growth potential -easy airline customization -long life duration of the avionics architectures.
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