ARINC 708 and ARINC 453 - The Airborne Weather Radar Data Bus

ARINC 708 is the standard data bus interface for airborne pulse Doppler weather radar systems, widely used on commercial transport aircraft. ARINC 453 is a closely related variant found on military platforms and legacy avionics systems. Excalibur's ARINC 708/453 interface products support both specifications.

The bus operates at 1 Mbit/s using a Manchester-encoded, transformer-coupled serial link - electrically similar to MIL-STD-1553. Each 1600-bit data frame carries a header (containing range, tilt, gain, and status parameters) followed by 512 range bins, each encoded as a 3-bit color value representing precipitation intensity. Radar system configuration is typically managed via an ARINC 429 control interface. Excalibur's hardware handles the full frame decode and encode cycle, including support for non-standard word lengths and amplitude variants found in fielded systems.

Parameter      Value

Bit rate

1 Mbit/s

Encoding

Manchester (transformer-coupled)
Frame length 1600 bits
Range bins per frame 512
Color bits per bin 3 bits

Excalibur's ARINC 708/453 interfaces are used in:


• Avionics test & integration labs - simulate or record weather radar bus traffic during LRU testing and system integration
• Simulation and training systems - inject realistic radar scenarios into avionics displays for flight simulator development
• Weather radar system development - prototype and validate radar data processing software against hardware-accurate bus traffic
• Protocol conversion - bridge ARINC 708 output to other avionics or recording standards using the MACCII protocol converter

 

ARINC 708/453 Products:

USB/Ethernet
USB/Ethernet

The EXC-Unet2 is an advanced Multi Protocol adapter and together with the M8K708 module gives you a ARINC-708 test and simulation adapter for USB or Ethernet equipped computers
PCI Express
PCI Express

The EXC-4000PCIe/xx and EXC-8000PCIe/xx boards together with the M8K708 modules make up an advanced ARINC-708 test and simulation family of boards for the PCI Express bus
Protocol convertor
Protocol convertor

The MACCII is an advanced Multi Protocol convertor and together with the M8K708 module it gives you an option to convert ARINC-708 to a protocol of your choice.
Mini PCIe
Mini PCIe

The EXC-708mPCIe is an ARINC 708, multichannel interface card. The cards small size and suitability for Mini Card compatible computers make it a complete solution for developing, testing, integrating ARINC 708 interfaces and for performing system simulation both in the lab and in the field.
cPCI
cPCI

The EXC-4000cPCI/xx and EXC-8000cPCI/xx boards together with the 708 M4K or M8K modules make up an advanced ARINC-708/453 test and simulation board for Compact PCI systems.
PCI/104-Express
PCI/104-Express

The EXC-8000PCIe104/xx together with the M8K708 module is an advanced ARINC-708 test and simulation board for PCI/104-Express systems.
PC/104 Plus
PC/104 Plus

The EXC-4000P104Plus is an advanced Multi Protocol card and together with the M4K708 module gives you a ARINC-708/453 test and simulation board for PC/104 Plus systems.
ccXMC
ccXMC

The EXC-8000ccXMC is an advanced conduction cooled Multi Protocol card and together with the M8K708 module gives you a ARINC 708/453 test and simulation board for XMC compatible systems.
ccVPX
ccVPX

The EXC-8000ccVPX is an advanced conduction cooled Multi Protocol card and together with the M8K708 module gives you a ARINC 708/453 test and simulation board for VPX compatible systems.