Modular, Cost-Effective, Extensible Avionics Architecture for Secure, Mobile Communications

Abstract

Current onboard communication architectures are based upon an all-in-one communications management unit. This unit and associated radio systems has regularly been designed as a one-off, proprietary system. As such, it lacks flexibility and cannot adapt easily to new technology, new communication protocols, and new communication links. This paper describes the current avionics communication architecture and provides a historical perspective of the evolution of this system. A new onboard architecture is proposed that allows full use of commercialoff-the-shelf technologies to be integrated in a modular approach thereby enabling a flexible, cost-effective and fully deployable design that can take advantage of ongoing advances in the computer, cryptography, and telecommunications industries.

Newsky - building a simulation environment for an integrated aeronautical network architecture

“…Apart from the superior technical approach huge numbers of commercial of the shelf 1-4244-1108-4/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE. 4.B.4-1 IP equipment have already been deployed at comparatively low cost. However, there are still many challenges and obstacles to overcome before ATN/IPS can serve as a full replacement for ATN/OSI 1 , as IP has not yet been optimized for the stringent requirements of the aeronautical environment concerning mobility, security, reliability and integrity.…”

“…For the fixed (i.e. ground) communication infrastructure a decision for migration is about to be adopted at ICAO level, while the subject is still being studied for the mobile communication [2,3,4].…”