Subsystem Design Using Time-Triggered Protocol (TTP): Key Aspects of Control System Application Reuse

The Time-Triggered Architecture (TTA) and its software development environment for the Time-Triggered Protocol (TTP) provide a framework which allows the efficient development of distributed embedded applications. Separate development of system architecture and subsystems design, strict control of key system interfaces and separation of functional/logical from temporal behavior facilitate the reuse and seamless integration of electronic subsystems provided by different suppliers.

TTA is an integrated platform solution which allows modular application development and certification up to the highest criticality classes with reuse of components. TTA principles improve the ability of system designers to significantly reduce system integration effort and obsolescence management costs. The time-triggered communication protocol TTP provides high performance and fault tolerance for the data transfer between distributed applications. Based on its well-defined interfaces and layering, it allows the handling of time-triggered and event-triggered messages, which enables the support of legacy systems.

TTA, which represents a viable design philosophy for complex integrated systems, is suitable for setting up a fault-tolerant distributed architecture with properties of distributed Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA), as defined in the standard for certification of integrated modular avionics architectures DO-297. TTP fully supports all requirements needed for the shared communication system as defined in DO-297. This approach ensures the reusability of applications and their corresponding certification package.