Networks

1553b
1 Mbps serial communication bus to simulate traffic and controller overhead
AFDX
Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet for use in space and air applications
CAN/CAN-FD
Support automotive and non-automotive applications with flexible gateway
FlexRay
Serial communication link for data communication application
Audio-Video Bridging
Audio and video streams over Ethernet-based networks
Time-Sensitive Networking
Standard technology for deterministic traffic
SPI
Send data between microcontrollers and small peripherals
Ethernet- Switched, Gigabit
Support both local and router designs
Token Ring
Communication protocol used for embedded and SoC architecture
Time-Triggered Ethernet
Fault-tolerant synchronization strategy to synchronize time in Ethernet and support synchronous time-triggered packet switching

Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX)

Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX) is a data network, for safety-critical applications that utilizes dedicated bandwidth while providing deterministic quality of service (QoS).

AFDX is required because High Speed Commercial Ethernet with provisions for guaranteed deterministic timing and redundancy is needed for Aviation applications.

There are two types of devices in an AFDX architecture – Switch and End-System.

Provisions have been added to ensure deterministic behaviour.

An AFDX network can define up to 64K Virtual Links identified by a 16-Bit identifier in the MAC destination field of Ethernet frame.

Overview

VisualSim AFDX modelling library provides the only system-level modelling environment for the combined evaluation the performance, power consumption and reliability of this aerospace network protocol.

This template is an extension to the Ethernet protocol library and allocates dedicated bandwidth for each node with guaranteeing Quality of Service.

AFDX is a specific implementation of ARINC Specification 664 Part 7, a profiled version of an IEEE 802.3 network per parts 1 & 2, which defines how Commercial Off-the-Shelf networking components will be used for future generation Aircraft Data Networks (ADN).

Specification:

The six primary aspects of AFDX include full duplex, redundancy, deterministic, high speed performance, switched and profiled network. The library can be connected to the hardware and the software blocks of the architecture library to assemble the full system. The AFDX switch can operate in any topology including a star.

All connections are full duplex
Data rate at 100 Mbits/sec
Supports multiple Virtual Links- vLAN with variable BAG and LMax values

Standards supported:

ARINC Specification 664 Part 7
IEEE 802.3 Ethernet MAC addressing
IP
UDP
SNMP
ICMP

Parameters Used

Each VisualSim AFDX switch has filtering, policing, and forwarding functions that should be able to process at least 4096 VLs. In a network with multiple switches (cascaded star topology), the total number of Virtual Links is nearly limitless. The user can limit the number of Virtual Links that can be handled by each End System. The switch is non-blocking and the data rates can be specified by each system integrator.

Connectivity information
Network Speed
Distance between Nodes
Traffic profiles at each node- Start Time, Stop Time, Rate, Data Size, UDP Class, VLAN
Number of Nodes

AFDX Library Components:

AFDXTraffic: This is an Ethernet traffic generator block. This block can be used to generate traffic for network model including AVB, Ethernet and AFDX.
AFDX_Switch: This block provides traffic policing and manages the routing of frames.
AFDX_TX_RX: This block performs traffic shaping and defines the Node.