Future Rotorcraft Technology Qualification and Certification

As avionics and flight critical systems become increasingly automated, layered, and complex, current avionics qualification methodologies, tools, and techniques are increasingly outdated or not feasible to implement economically. Traditional science and technology development stressed development and demonstration of the technology, with follow-on development of qualification methods and tools. Rapid advances in avionics implementation technology, user need for rapid development, qualification and fielding of increasingly complex critical systems require concurrent development of qualification methodologies, tools, and techniques with the core technology itself. For military Future Vertical Lift, adaptable system architectures are desired that enable leverage of civil certified and commercial off the shelf equipment. New techniques and automation tools are being developed in the aviation industry that must be leveraged to enable straightforward, thorough, and affordable qualification. Concurrently, rotorcraft flight controls and avionics have unique flight and mission critical design and qualification attributes that must be recognized. This paper examines the core of three methodologies for the qualification of complex critical systems, and identifies architectural design/investment strategy trade space and areas of opportunity with potentially high pay off from a qualification efficiency perspective.