The complexity of avionic systems increases all the time, requiring extensible capabilities for testing, including advanced simulation and analysis. Ethernet and CAN825 are increasingly being used for avionic system development, generating new challenges for testing.
The complexity of avionic systems increases all the time, requiring extensible capabilities for testing, including advanced simulation and analysis. Together with the traditional MIL-STD-1553 and ARINC 429 protocols, Ethernet and CAN825 are increasingly being used for avionic system development, generating new challenges for testing.
Multiple off the shelf (low cost) solutions are available for basic simulation development, such as transmitting and receiving a single message. More advanced scenarios often require highly accurate timing for simulation and analysis, protocol-level field control, error injection, and the capability of recording real live scenarios for later reconstruction, as part of the testing. For these advanced scenarios, using COTS is possible in some cases, but greatly increases the development cost and schedule of simulation software development.
Excalibur’s M4KETH and M8KCAN825 products enable you to construct these types of advanced testing scenarios using unique hardware-based features. These products are supplied together with our Simulation Laboratory utility, providing a complete solution for interface testing. The Simulation Laboratory generates a user-customized GUI from an Excel spreadsheet, avoiding the need for programming, and enabling the testing of complex timing scenarios, protocol-level control, error injection and full data reconstructor capabilities.
M4KEthernet Module
Our M4KEthernet module's transmit mode supports a Bus List mode that handles timing for minor and major frames. It supports large buffers enabling you to load data for several frames at once. Support is provided for Sampling and Queuing data. Sampling data is used for EU (engineering unit) data that is periodically updated; Queuing data is file oriented. If there is no new data, nothing will be transmitted.
The module’s receive mode supports both a sequential monitor and a Socket-based monitor, in which each defined socket gets its own buffer. 32 megabytes are available for the receive buffers, which gives the host leeway in dealing with high throughput applications. A one-microsecond precision 48-bit time tag or a 64-bit IRIG time tag is attached to each buffer read. The module attaches six digits of microseconds to the IRIG time for high precision timing.
A Data Reconstructor mode transmits a scenario based on a previous live session recorded in a .pcap file as the source for the Data Reconstructor. Error injection capabilities include packet length not matching IP length or incorrect IP checksum value.
M8K825CAN Module
Our M8K825CAN module implements the spec’s Bandwidth mode, and allows you to insert high priority messages asynchronously within the schedule messages. High integrity messages are supported with the module generating the CRC and sequence numbers. You have field-by-field control over the Identifier.
In receive mode, up to eight filters are supported by the module. A one-microsecond precision 48-bit time tag or a 64-bit IRIG time tag is attached to each buffer read. The module attaches six digits of microseconds to the IRIG time for high precision timing. Status indicators are provided for standard errors as well as CRC errors, for high integrity messages.
Summary
Simple applications can be performed using simple I/O adaptors. Real time avionics simulation applications are anything but simple, use Excalibur I/O adaptors to reduce development time and risk.