CS Canada Partners with Opal-RT Technologies to Deliver a Portable Simulator for Aerospace Engine ECU Development

Today’s aircraft are typically designed and built using mission critical systems that are both comprised of multiple components and developed by a wide variety of manufacturers.

This diversity, coupled with requirements for high precision and reliable, error-free operation inherent in aerospace design, has lead to the evolution of very stringent regulations that manufacturers involved in the design and manufacturing of aircraft must adhere to.

The most widely known standards are DO-178B and DO-254. Developed by the US-based Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA), DO-178B establishes guidelines for avionics software quality and testing in real-world conditions. DO-254 is a formal standard governing design of airborne electronic hardware.

The complex control systems found onboard today’s aircraft are also developed and tested according to these standards. As a result, aerospace engineers need higher precision testing and simulation technologies that will ensure this compliance. Of course, at the same time they must also meet the market’s demands for innovative new products, built on time, to spec and within budget.

One company that is helping aerospace manufacturers meet these challenges is CS Canada.

Based in Montreal, CS-Canada is a subsidiary of CS Communication & Systems (www.c-s.fr), a European Group leader in critical software and telecommunications for a variety of industries, including defence, space and security, aeronautics, transportation and energy.

The CS Group employs nearly 2000 people worldwide, including 1000 engineers. CS-Canada is currently in a phase of rapid growth and plans to employ 140 persons by the end of 2010.
 
The mandate of the Canadian subsidiary is to serve the North American market in fields where CS Aerospace and Defence units already excel. The company’s list of customers reads like a who’s who of the aerospace industry, including Canadian Space Agency, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Bombardier, Hispano-Suiza, Airbus and Bell Helicopter.
 
The CS Group supplies highly qualified technical services, develops and markets scientific and technical software tools (simulation, embedded critical software, and engineering) and delivers high value-added systems (networks and distributed applications) in the aerospace, air traffic management, road traffic control, telecom, defence and energy fields.
 
Through its Critical Embedded Software department, the CS Group is a leading international avionics software engineering company, providing avionics control software and services for more than 25 years while supporting over 20 aerospace programs. 

As a strategic partner in the aerospace sector, CS handles complex projects for many of the world’s largest engine manufacturers, innovative aircraft builders and worldwide equipment suppliers. Customers rely on CS’s specialized know-how for the development, integration and maintenance of critical real-time embedded systems and technical information systems.

A significant part of CS Canada's activities is to perform testing on the software of various aircraft Electronic Engine Control Units. As a result, CS Canada was mandated to build a portable engine simulator system. The system was specified to be as generic as possible since the product is being provided to an engine manufacturer's clients along with its engines, and must support multiple engine types. Before the engines are ready for production, the engine simulator can be integrated with the avionics and help perform interface validation, as well as avionics and engine control software verification.

The CS Canada portable engine simulator system is based on the eFLYsim Real-Time Simulator platform. Developed by Montreal-based Opal-RT Technologies Inc., eFLYsim is based on the RT-LAB® Real-Time Simulation software environment, and provides a flexible, open and easily scalable platform for use in a number of aerospace-specific engineering applications including Open- & Closed-Loop Controller Testing, Development & Validation, Engineering Flight Simulation, Avionic Profiling, Real-Time Simulation of Complex Electro-mechanical Systems, Spacecraft Control and Robotics Control.

The CS Canada portable engine simulator system includes a host station that acts as an HMI, and a target computer which runs the model and is interfaced to a set of engine FADECs; behaving seamlessly as the FADEC engines and avionics (sensors, and user inputs/indicators). The CS Canada system can be used in an autonomous fashion, connected to the Electronic Engine Control Unit (EECU), or in a “bench mode” where avionics signals are not simulated, but interfaced with the real avionics. Other modes provide fault injection and a mix of the previous two modes.

Figure 1 - CS Canada Portable Engine Simulator Architecture

The uniqueness of the system is not its hardware timing, but its hardware concentration, and the need for the software to be user-friendly. Given the necessity to produce an integrated product with lots of built-in features, and not just an in-house testing tool, almost all the features of RT-LAB's application programming interface (API) were used. The result is a front-end that provides semantic information on simulation signals, and supports GUIs as well as scripts interfacing via CORBA.

The scripting API enables the user to define complex test scenarios, avoiding most, if not all, of the manual tests. Multiple GUIs on separate hosts may also be used.

This project was a challenge for both CS Canada and Opal-RT. However, it has also resulted in great benefit for the two companies. The simulator was constructed at CS by a team of 3 engineers within a few months. While some initial integration problems were faced, these were overcome with the assistance of Opal-RT’s aerospace engineering group and Customer Support Team.

In addition, the cooperation between CS Canada and Opal-RT on this project has resulted in a number of upgrades to CS Canada’s system, as well as additional functionality now available in the current version of RT-LAB.

The CS Canada portable engine simulator system remains under development, as some software and operating modes require additional support. However, the partnership is enabling CS Canada to meet its commitments to its aerospace customers.