A GENERIC SIMULATION MODEL FOR END-TO-END DELAYS EVALUATION ON AN AVIONICS SWITCHED ETHERNET

Abstract

AFDX (Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet, ARINC 664) used for modern aircraft such as Airbus A380 represents a major upgrade in both bandwidth and capability for aircraft data networks. Its reliance on Ethernet technology helps to lower some of the implementation costs, though the requirement for guaranteed service does present challenges to system designers. Thus, the problem is to prove that no frame will be lost by the network (no switch queue will overflow) and to evaluate the end-to-end transfer delay through the network.Several approaches have been proposed for this evaluation. Network calculus gives a guaranteed upper bound on end-to-end delays, while simulation produces more accurate results on a given set of scenarios. In this paper, the focus is on the end-to-end delays distribution. An important problem is the great number of different flows, since the evaluation has to be conducted on each flow. We use a simulation approach to show that different network architectures can lead to the same end-to-end delays distribution. Thus, we propose a generic simulation model for the evaluation of end-to-end delays distribution.