Aviya Technologies Answers the Aerospace Industry Call for DO-178B & DO-254-certification Test Benches

Originally published
in the June 2009
issue of Planet-RT

It has often been said that flying is among the safest forms of travel. Indeed, according to a 10-year average of National Safety Council statistics from 1996 to 2005, air travel proved to be 40 times safer than driving a car. Given the growing complexity of the hardware and software systems deployed on today’s aircraft, this is an outstanding record of performance.

So, how has the aerospace industry managed to maintain such a high level of quality, and by extension, safety, in the products it designs and builds? A major reason has been the development and adoption of stringent standards that must be adhered to by aerospace hardware and software developers.

The most widely known standards are DO-178B and DO-254. Developed by the US-based Radieo 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 responding to this need is Aviya Technologies Inc. (www.Aviyatech.com). A Canadian company, with offices in Montreal and Mississauga, Aviya specializes in the design and testing of mission-critical control systems for aerospace and defence applications.

Founded in 2001, Aviya today counts a number of the aerospace industry’s leading manufacturers among its customers, including Pratt & Whitney Canada, Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell and Safran. The company’s expertise in DO-178B and DO-254 certification has enabled them to design high-quality testing products that result in low maintainability and ease of verification.

According to Aviya CTO, Billings Chan, “Our Verification & Validation team has extensive experience in all levels of requirements-based testing to the extent that we have been responsible for the verification and validation of products that are classified as safety-critical (DO-178B Level A).”

As part of the company’s ongoing efforts to keep ahead of the pace of technology, Aviya recently used eFLYsim Real-Time Simulators in the development of Test Bench products that have received DO-178b Level A and DO-254 qualification.

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.

Aviya’s recently launched Generic Test Bench for conducting Validation and Verification of engine controllers is used by their aerospace customers to verify controller designs and ensure that they operate according to specifications. Customers can also use the Aviya Test Bench for conducting Open-Loop testing of systems such as landing gear.

“Opal-RT’s aerospace industry expertise in Real-Time Simulation, Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing and simulation on FPGA processors made it easy for us to choose to use their technology in our Test Bench products”, added Mr. Chan.  “Their use of commercial-off-the-shelf PC technologies, coupled with an open software approach, has enabled us to take a generic approach in the design of Aviya Test Benches. As a result, we can now develop and configure our Test Bench products to ensure compatibility with a wide variety of system configurations, while keeping costs to a minimum.”

Aviya’s Generic Test Bench is capable of supporting Closed-Loop Bench (CLB) and Opened-Loop Bench (OLB) configurations, making it easily adaptable for re-use in different avionic programs. This adaptability means that new design models, built using Simulink from The MathWorks Inc., can be easily loaded with minimal modifications to the system. The platform also has support for multiple systems, allowing Aviya’s customers to add additional simulator hardware as required for test setup.

The Generic Test Bench also includes extensive I/O support, allowing the engineer to add as many as 128 configurable I/O ports to each system, as well as ARINC 429 & CAN bus hardware modules.

Aviya also has an FPGA Test Bench under development that takes advantage of the eFLYsimplatform. Aviya’s FPGA Test Bench, specifically targeted towards DO-254 certification, represents an evolutionary quantum leap in test bench technology development. Where engineers would have previously used technologies such as storage oscilloscopes for the capture and study of waveforms, the eFLYsim platform now enables Aviya’s customers to easily capture a greater number of digital output signals and compare them to expected results, and to easily automate test cases.

It remains the objective of every aircraft manufacturer and commercial airline to be able to claim a perfect safety record. This will continue to require advancements in avionic technologies, developed and tested according to strict standards. With advanced Test Benches now available, such as those developed by Aviya Technologies, soon we all may be flying both “the friendly skies” and the safest skies.