Testing of High-Lift System Functions with a Distributed Avionics Test Bench

The new emerging trends in aviation like more autonomous aircraft or green aviation lead to a higher development workload of the supporting avionic infrastructure. To support these technologies, new processes must be developed as to increase the efficiency with which market readiness is made available. Geographically distributed testing reduces the need for transportation of test benches during development and allows for easier adaption before, during and after tests. The communication can be conducted via real-time supporting systems, like the specifically designed quasi-real-time Internet connection hardware FastWAN developed by ExxpertSystems. Additionally, abstract simulation environments can be used as a further approach as to, e.g., confirm interface definitions. This allows for parallel development of the proper test setup while ensuring continuous validation. Therefore, faults can be isolated earlier, and overall development time is reduced.While not replacing the need for proper certification testing, due to delays in the communication between the different systems, basic functionality and compatibility of subsystems can be analyzed. Consequently, development stakeholders are able to participate in the test process from their preferred development environment and therefore retain a high amount of flexibility. This increases the efficiency of late-stage tests, since the common test base is better coordinated.To research the advantages and challenges that this approach offers, a test bench for a high-lift system was set up and operated from three different locations distributed in Germany, each of them providing partial functionality.