| Over the years, federated avionics has demonstrated its capabilities in terms of reliability. However, economic constraints have led manufacturers to upgrade existing systems. Thus, the integrated modular avionics (IMA) have emerged in order to reduce the size, weight and power of embedded systems.;To meet the communication needs of IMA systems, new data bus architectures and protocols are required. Although current protocols such as AFDX ( Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet) are very effective, other alternatives are possible. Therefore, this master's thesis proposes a study of the PCI Express protocol for use in avionics systems.;The characterization of the communication bus has identified the relevant factors in relation to requirements imposed by the avionics certification authorities. Thus, constraints on the determinism and reliability are the main focus of this research. An extensive work has been done to extract from the specification all the mechanisms conferring reliability and determinism.;The second objective of this research was to develop an experimental platform to validate the theoretical concepts. Experiments were conducted to test the critical elements related to the objectives of this research.;Finally, the results of this research demonstrate that the PCI Express protocol possesses the essential characteristics required by the avionics certification authorities. Indeed, in addition to its multiple mechanisms of reliability, the protocol has a deterministic mode of operation. |
