Design issues for MIL-STD-1773 optical fiber avionics data buses

In this paper, several design issues on highly reliable MIL-STD-1773 (or 1553B) optical fiber avionics data buses are investigated. Two optical modulation techniques are proposed for avionics data buses, and they can be used to efficiently solve the problems associated with the fast identification of correct operation states for optical transmitters while maintaining less complexity of transceivers. The implementation of the proposed techniques is discussed. We also deal with the selection of optical devices and fibers to improve the reliability and power budget of optical fiber avionics data buses. Furthermore, some future improvements on avionics data bus systems are pointed out.