Interface de transducteurs intelligents tolérante aux pannes pour des applications avioniques critiques

Abstract

An increasing number of sensing and actuation devices are needed in modern aircrafts in order to provide a variety of functions for aircrafts monitoring and control. Diverse communication networks have been adopted in new avionic systems to support data transfers while ensuring very high communication bandwidth and reducing bulky wiring bundles. Integrating a wide range of sensing and actuation elements in a heterogeneous network environment raises serious challenges requiring the standardization of transducer interfaces in avionics systems. One of the viable solutions for these problems is the adoption of the IEEE 1451 standard in the development of smart transducers interfaces for the next generation avionics systems. Another important aspect for safety-critical avionics systems is that smart transducers interfaces with embedded fault tolerance capabilities are needed to meet high reliability and safety requirements imposed by regulations and standards. In this work we propose a smart transducers interface architecture that targets an FPGA platform. This architecture is defined using the IEEE1451.0 standard and it integrates several fault tolerance techniques that strengthen the reliability and safety attributes of the interface. A core-level redundancy and an online testing mechanism ensure detection, diagnosis and recovery from faults. The interface can handle transient and permanent faults. The proposed interface has been designed to be as generic as possible in order to support a wide range of transducers that could be deployed in several avionics safety-critical applications such as flight control systems (FCSs), electric braking systems (EBSs) and air data systems (ADSs). Reliability and safety performance of the interface are investigated and shown to be satisfactory. Finally, the proposed interface design has been implemented and validated through a hardware prototype.

Date	6 Jan 2014
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Claude Thibeault (Supervisor) & Yvon Savaria (Co-supervisor)