INTEGRATED MODULAR AVIONICS - A SCHEME FOR AUTONOMOUS DYNAMIC SYSTEM RECONFIGURATION

Integrated Modular Avionics offers significant reductions in cost and weight, and improved maintainability, but these benefits will not full y realised unless dynamic reconfiguration is used to preserve the more critical functions, even after multiple failures. This will allow saf ety levels to be maintained or improved, whilst reducing the amount of redundancy required and allowing maintenance to be deferred. This pap er assesses the potential benefits of dynamic reconfiguration and the risks of common mode failure that may be introduced. It proposes an au tonomous reconfiguration scheme, in which each module determines its o wn function, in order to reduce these risks.