An integrated modular avionics development environment

The ARINC 653 standard has taken a leading role within the aeronautical industry in the development of safety-critical systems based on the Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) concept. One of the main promises of IMA is cost saving in reduced development, integration and verification and validation effort. To exploit the full potential of cost savings, it is necessary to establish an effective way to prototype, develop, test and analyse on-board applications without having access to the final IMA target platform for all engineers. Target platforms are usually extremely expensive considering hardware and software prices as well as training costs. This paper describes the architecture of the Integrated Modular Avionics Development Environment (IMADE) that is based on Linux and the ARINC 653 simulator Simulated IMA (SIMA) that was developed by Skysoft Portugal, 2007-2009.