Enabling the Automated Generation of the Failure and Redundancy Management for Distributed and Integrated Fly-by-Wire Avionics

Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems require full automatic flight control covering all contingency and emergency cases. Air taxis or advanced manned CS-23 aircraft will also have to be equipped with a complex flight control system in the future. All of these control systems will have to be implemented based on highly integrated fly-by-wire platforms. Today, the development and qualification of fly-by-wire platform instances is highly complex and expensive. In order to make this technology affordable for air taxis or CS-23 aircraft, a new approach must be found in order to significantly reduce the development and qualification effort without compromising safety. This is why the University of Stuttgart, in close cooperation with Aviotech GmbH, has developed the Flexible Avionics Platform as the basis for highly integrated fly-by-wire platform instances. It is characterized by three features: 1) a highly integrated architecture, 2) a platform management layer that covers all aspects of failure and redundancy management of a fly-by-wire platform instance including sensors and actuators, 3) a three-staged automated artifact generation (AAA process), that enables a highly automated instantiation of the fly-by-wire platform software including the platform management (Axx), a highly automated generation of all requirements documents at system and software development level (xAx) as well as a highly automated generation of the associated test cases and test scripts (xxA). The focus of this paper is the management layer, especially the planning mechanisms for any fly-by-wire platform reconfigurations due to failures or operation mode changes.