Pitfalls of Designing, Developing, and Maintaining Modular Avionics Systems in the Name of Sustainability

Sustainability is both an ethical responsibility and business concern for the aerospace industry. Military and commercial avionics developers have pushed toward a common standard for interfaces, computing platforms, and software in hopes of having “reusability” and reducing weight with backplane computing architectures which, in theory, would support commonality across aircraft systems. The integrated modular avionics (IMA) and military Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) standards are two such examples. They emerged to support common computing architectures for reuse and sustainability concepts, from the beginning of aircraft development to the sundown or mortality phase.

Pitfalls of Designing, Developing, and Maintaining Modular Avionics Systems in the Name of Sustainability looks at technological, organizational, and cultural challenges making reuse and IMA platform models difficult to fully realize their sustainability goals. Additionally, it considers the certification aspects of reuse and examines lessons learned from a successful reusable and sustainable platform.