Evaluation of software performance characteristics of flexray communication protocol for its suitability in avionics

FlexRay communication protocol has become popular for its real-time and fault-tolerant features with time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme of bus scheduling. This paper covers the software aspects of the FlexRay protocol as a part of a comprehensive investigation of suitability of FlexRay in Avionics. The focus is on the analysis of performance characteristics and tailoring of the protocol stack at the software level. In order to carry out this investigation, a commercial FlexRay software stack integrated into a target evaluation board is used. The tests are done in a FlexRay network environment which is close to today's aircraft avionics system configuration.