Internet Protocol Suite for Safety Services: Validation with Next Generation Avionics

Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) for Safety Services will be the future networking standard for aviation safety datalink communications. The IPS standards are currently under development and are envisioned to reach their final maturity in 2022. Before the standards are published, a proper validation is required. Airbus Operations SAS and Honeywell International, who are major contributors to IPS standardization, collaborate closely on design, development, and validation of the IPS technology.The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the validation exercise performed by Airbus and Honeywell to support IPS standards validation. The main goals of the validation exercise were to demonstrate that deployment of the Airborne IPS System, compliant to the most recent version of the IPS standards, on a realistic avionics platform is feasible, and that its integration with the existing aircraft systems does not require changes to either the airborne datalink applications and/or to the interfaces to other avionics systems. To achieve these goals, the Airborne IPS System developed by Honeywell was deployed on a future Airbus modular avionics platform, integrated in an environment of the Airbus A350 aircraft, and validated with existing Baseline 1 (B1) safety services applications that are in operational use today. This paper presents the environment and the methods that were used for the validation, as well as the challenges of integrating geographically diverse laboratories to create a high-fidelity validation environment and to successfully achieve project objectives, particularly when faced with pandemic-driven restrictions.