Design And Implementation Of AFDX Gateway

AFDX(Avionics Full DupleX Switched Ethernet), a new network protocol for large aircraft to exchange data between Avionics SubSystems. AFDX is based on IEEE802.3 Ethernet and TCP/IP general principles, which have been wide used and long-tested with the development of INTERNET all over the world. However it uses specific concept and features to provide secure data transfer with real-time constraints to provide the guarantee of services and determinism required for civil aerospace requirements. Compared with the other avionics data-bus, such as ARINC429 and MIL-STD-1553B, AFDX not only increases network bandwidth, effectively avoid network bottlenecks, but also significantly reduces the weight and cost of aircraft. Both of the Airbus and Boeing, have coined AFDX to its new aircraft recently, such as A380, A400, and Boeing-787. For the reason of technique blockage, the major AFDX equipments have been strictly embargoed against China by United States and Europe countries. AFDX has become the hotspot of many Chinese Universities and research institutes.With the wide use of INTERNET, a lot of network equipments could be remote monitored and remote managed, and some application software has become common network tools, such as TFTP, SNMP, etc.. It can also be used to solve similar problems of AFDX network to save the costs of researching and developing.Although AFDX are very similar as the IEEE802.3 Ethernet, they cannot communicate with each other directly without a gateway. It is very necessary to design and implement a gateway as a bridge between AFDX and IEEE802.3 Ethernet. So some software tools, such as TFTP, SNMP, can be used in the AFDX network for network monitor, management, and configuration without any modification.This article describes following parts:1. Describes AFDX technical background, technical features, and AFDX network architecture. Analysis the relationship between the gateway and the other subsystems, and the social significance of researching & developing AFDX gateway software.2. Design and implement a AFDX Gateway software based on real-time embedded platform, using the address and port mapping, static configuration, packet parsing and restructuring technology, to transmission data directly between AFDX network and traditional Ethernet.3. Implement remote data storage and statistical functions in AFDX Gateway for the user to get performance data.4. Design and implement a platform for AFDX Gateway to simulate the real working environment to test and verify the data exchange of the AFDX Gateway.