Avionics technology is a blend of aviation and electronics.
Avionics technology mainly focuses on the electronic systems used on aircraft, spacecraft and artificial satellites. But avionics systems themselves cover communications, navigation and the display and management of multiple other systems such as the hundreds of systems fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions.
Avionic technology is essential to enable the flight crew to carry out the aircraft mission safely and efficiently in everything from carrying passengers to their destination to intercepting a hostile aircraft.
One of the key components in avionics is the data bus.
There are 11 ARINC 629 data buses consisting of three Flight Controls Buses, four System Buses, and four AIMS Inter-cabinet Buses. The Flight Control Buses connect LRU’ s containing flight control functions such as the Air Data Inertial Reference System, the primary night computers, and the autopilot.
The System Buses connect LRU’s containing system functions such as avionics, propulsion. electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, and environmental controls.
In the modern aircraft, ARINC 629 couplers and data bus assemblies are mounted together in panels. This allows for easier access during maintenance.
The majority of coupler panels are covered; this also provides protection from physical damage to the couplers and bus cable assembly. Of the 11 data buses, nine have all couplers and the entire data bus assembly contained completely within a panel. And in most cases. there is more than one data bus per panel.
The two longest buses (Left System Bus and Right System Bus) run nearly the entire length of the pressurized fuselage. These buses have the majority of their associated couplers contained within forward panels.
The remaining few are mounted on small panels at the rear of the airplane.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Avionics Technology Crash Course, a 2-day class that covers advanced avionics technology, Network/IO systems used in these aircraft, digital data bus communication, software and hardware architecture, avionics systems design and engineering principles, ARP 475, Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) and ARINC protocols.
Digital Data bus Theory and Analysis explores several formats of digital data transfer protocols such as ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553 data bus and others.
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