Avionics systems engineering is both rewarding and challenging.
An avionics systems engineer needs to constantly stay updated through education on latest technological advances as well as avionics standards.
Ongoing innovations in individual avionics components, including navigational systems, autopilot, radar, collision avoidance, and braking systems, provide pilots with an advanced toolkit that makes commercial flight safer and more controlled than ever.
However, the sophistication and sheer number of these components have made system-level avionics engineering an increasingly difficult challenge.
Today’s avionics system engineers need to integrate a diverse range of functionally complex components, provided by multiple suppliers, into a system that’s reliable enough to ensure consistent aircraft performance and passenger safety.
Avionics systems engineering is also all about understanding and meeting numerous regulatory operating systems protocols, including ARINC 653, ARINC 429, CAN, and ARINC 664.
One of the first standards specifically targeted at civil avionic applications was ARINC 429, which defines a multi-drop field bus link connecting one transmitter and several receivers.
Then Boeing and NASA jointly developed a new technology, ARINC 629, based on a triplex-bus layout, including dual redundancy buses and a flight control bus. It allows for multi-access by employing a CSMA/CD media access mode and avoids collisions by using a time-division-based mechanism.
DO-178B is a 1992 RTCA standard used to govern the certification of avionic software (including complete aircraft). The standard is solely focused on software development and is therefore similar in scope to IEC 61508 Part 3.
Military avionics have adopted two commercial standards, DO-178B and DO-254, that have established safety while maintaining schedule, cost, and quality. Both standards require planning, detailed requirements, process control, and rigorous testing.
Want to learn more about avionic systems engineering? Tonex offers Avionic Systems Engineering Crash Course, a 4-day curriculum that covers a comprehensive training of theories, technical, certification requirements, and the technologies applied in avionic systems.
Tonex also offers nearly four dozen other Aerospace & Defense Engineering Training courses.
For more information, questions, comments, contact us.