On the efficiency improvements to aeronautical waveforms and integrated modular avionics systems

Abstract

The coming decade will see an unprecedented air traffic growth and the installation of more avionic systems onboard aircrafts, in response to new services, safety and reliability requirements. The latter has triggered the evolution of avionic architecture towards the next generation Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA), due to space constraints under the Federated architecture. Furthermore, newer avionic systems and communication requirements will exasperate data capacity demands in the already constrained spectrum. Therefore, the spectral efficiency of existing avionic communication systems must be improved or new high data capacity communications technologies must be identified that can coexist with other avionic radios in the saturated aeronautical bands. In this paper, the efficiency improvements to avionic communication waveforms and the IMA architecture are addressed. In particular, a new modulation technique is proposed for avionic waveform and is evaluated for aeronautic communication channels. Also, a concept for a more efficient architecture is proposed and discussed within the IMA second generation (IMA 2G) that integrates the communication, navigation and surveillance radios together with other avionic applications into an ARINC 653 standard, which supports a partitioned Operating System. This includes the integration of the avionic waveforms to run within an independent IMA partition. Optimization of applications in the overall IMA system framework will reduce the number of avionics hardware (IMA Modules). Reducing the number of avionics hardware, coupled with flexible or reconfigurable hardware, will result in reduced cabling and associated connectors, thus contributing to the reduction in the overall weight of the aircraft. This will consequently boost fuel efficiency from an avionics perspective.