Safety and reliability analysis of wireless data communication concepts for flight control systems

Abstract

Wireless communication systems take the place of wired communication systems in various fields to overcome cable-based problems and their limitations. Avionics is one of the fields in which aging and damaging of cables can cause severe accidents. The most important advantages of wireless systems in avionics are weight reduction, resulting in less fuel consumption, flexibility, ease of layout, maintenance and modification. In this contribution, replacement of wired-based safety-critical data communication systems in an aircraft with wireless systems, in terms of safety and reliability is discussed. Under the scope of this work, the conceptual baseline study on wireless flight control systems is carried out. A point-to-point data transmission for a wireless flight control network is simulated considering safety constraints. Therefore, relevant transmission parameters of the wireless system are evaluated, which improve safety level of the wireless transmission. To assess the safety and reliability of the system, failure sources are studied and effects of most influential environmental disturbing factors on the simulated data link are investigated. As a result, effects of changing environmental conditions on the wireless data link for the concept of flight control system are analyzed.