Pan-European consortium aims to assist airframers to cope with increasing functionality
Initial benefits from a pan-European effort to simplify complex electronic architectures on commercial aircraft will be evident on the Airbus A380, even though the ultra-large airliner's development is too far along to gain maximum advantage.
Known as Victoria, the 47-month programme brings together 34 partners. It builds on the achievements of the earlier Nevada, Pamela and Anais projects which explored the concept of integrated modular electronics.
Airframes typically include 100 dedicated, separately produced electronics boxes governing aircraft operations. Their total weight can reach 500kg (1,110lb), with a further 500kg of wiring.
"These cannot share central processing units and common resources," said Airbus France's Victoria representative Jean-Bernard Itier during a forum in Athens, adding that their diversity causes maintenance problems.
Victoria aims to develop a standardised, integrated electronics platform with open architecture and common modular components to reduce the number of individual electronics packages. It employs common hardware components, such as standard core processing modules and Ethernet-like communications, to control various aspects of aircraft operation across six domains - cockpit, cabin, utilities, energy, passenger services, and on-board information.
The programme also seeks to decouple hardware from software, allowing aircraft systems to be upgraded more easily through software uploading rather than hardware changes.
Airbus senior executive Sylvain Prudhomme says the programme will assist airframers in coping with increasing functionality without necessarily adding to the mass of electronics hardware. Despite its increased functionality, the A380 could "go back to the level" of the Airbus A340-600 in terms of the number of individual electronics boxes required.
Prudhomme concedes that Victoria started "too late" to benefit the A380 fully. But he says: "It has helped to de-risk the technology that we have on the aircraft."
Victoria's cabin domain leader Walter Kraus describes current electronic integration as "a nightmare". He says the individual components of the cabin environment - such as pressurisation controls, ventilation and smoke detection - should be linked to function more efficiently. The cabin design of the A380 will employ technological concepts, which Victoria has helped to validate.
Airbus France's Sylvie Robert, the cockpit domain leader, adds that Victoria has shown that new applications - such as an airport navigation display, which "will be in" the A380 - can easily be introduced to the common platform.
DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW / ATHENS
Source: Flight International
