Method for Authorizing Critical Effector Commands in a Space-Based Integrated Modular Avionics System

An Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architecture provides a common platform for software partitions with shared processing and input/output (I/O) resources. A key feature of the IMA architecture is I/O partitioning. An IMA system will prevent one software partition from changing an I/O resource that is owned by another software partition. This prevents one software partition from controlling the outputs of another due to hardware fault or software error. The IMA system must have protection mechanisms in place to enforce the I/O partitioning.