Distributed parallel test system for avionics products

Abstract

The distributed parallel test system for the avionics products comprises the test management assembly, the edge test assembly, the test interface assembly and the interface adaptation assembly, can support independent development and operation of a test model and a test program, can also support test of the avionics products with various types of interfaces, and is high in test efficiency. The method supports the testing of a plurality of avionics products, supports the testing of a plurality of avionics products at the same time, supports the dynamic distribution of testing resources, supports the flexible control of a testing process, supports the real-time release of testing information, remarkably reduces the use, purchase and maintenance cost of avionics product suppliers in the aspect of a testing system, and greatly improves the throughput of the testing system.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the technical field of avionics equipment and system testing, and particularly relates to a parallel testing system for avionics products. Background Technology

[0002] With the widespread application of information technology in aircraft, airborne avionics products are becoming increasingly complex, with rapid growth in functionality and scale, leading to a continuous increase in testing difficulty. Thorough testing of avionics products is crucial for ensuring flight safety, requiring not only significant time investment but also substantial support from testing equipment. Currently, the wide variety and large quantity of avionics products have become a major factor influencing R&D costs, quality, and schedules. Most of these require dedicated testing equipment, with test procedures and items deeply integrated with the equipment, preventing secondary development and application to other avionics products. This results in low utilization rates and substantial costs, becoming a major pain point for avionics product suppliers. Current domestic and international solutions to the problem of dedicated testing equipment are as follows: First, the dedicated testing equipment is designed as an open testing equipment, allowing test programs to be developed independently by test engineers. At the same time, the changes and adaptations of hardware and software are minimized for different avionics products under test. Secondly, a universal testing system can be designed that supports various avionics products under test without modification. This second solution better addresses the cost and maintenance issues of the testing system, but it is technically more challenging.

[0003] Both of the above solutions can resolve the current problem in the test, but they still cannot solve the problem: 1. The testing system remains isolated, and test information cannot be efficiently transferred between different testing systems; 2. The testing system is not effectively connected to other management systems, and test information cannot be effectively exchanged with external systems; 3. The internal processing and storage resources of the testing system were not effectively utilized, resulting in significant waste.

[0004] In view of this, the present invention is hereby proposed. Summary of the Invention

[0005] The distributed parallel testing system for avionics products provided by this invention achieves the versatility of the testing system, supports testing of avionics products with various types of interfaces, and can simultaneously test multiple avionics products and support dynamic allocation of testing resources. The technical solution of this invention has many beneficial effects, as described below: A distributed parallel test system for avionics products, suitable for testing avionics products in airborne systems, the parallel test system comprising: Test management components are used for configuration management, health management, test configuration management, test data management, test program development, test model development, and application development management of avionics product testing. Edge testing components are used for the operation control, automated test platform, data visualization, test support capability assessment, dynamic matching of test resources, runtime system, platform management, external simulation and ICD management of avionics product testing; The test interface component is used to realize the mutual conversion of physical and logical resources, configuration of logical resources and fault injection functions for avionics product testing; Interface adapter components are used to standardize the physical interfaces for avionics product testing, enabling avionics products to achieve physical connection with the test interface components.

[0006] Compared with the prior art, the technical solution provided by the present invention has the following beneficial effects: By employing cutting-edge information technology to technically transform and upgrade the testing system, defining and allocating its functions, and designing a new system architecture, a new testing system can be created. This new testing system will enable resource-level and information-level sharing, support the independent development and operation of test models and programs, support testing of avionics products with various interface types, support simultaneous testing of multiple avionics products, support dynamic allocation of test resources, support flexible control of the testing process, and support real-time release of test information. This significantly reduces the usage, procurement, and maintenance costs of testing systems for avionics product suppliers and greatly improves the throughput of the testing system. Attached Figure Description

[0007] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention or the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0008] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall architecture of the testing system according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 This is a functional deployment diagram of the testing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0009] The following specific examples illustrate the implementation of the present invention. Those skilled in the art can easily understand other advantages and effects of the present invention from the content disclosed in this specification. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of them. The present invention can also be implemented or applied through other different specific embodiments, and the details in this specification can also be modified or changed based on different viewpoints and applications without departing from the spirit of the present invention. It should be noted that, in the absence of conflict, the following embodiments and features in the embodiments can be combined with each other. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the present invention without creative effort are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0010] It should be noted that various aspects of embodiments within the scope of the appended claims are described below. It will be apparent that the aspects described herein can be embodied in a wide variety of forms, and any particular structure and / or function described herein is merely illustrative. Based on this invention, those skilled in the art will understand that one aspect described herein can be implemented independently of any other aspect, and two or more of these aspects can be combined in various ways. For example, any number of aspects set forth herein can be used to implement the device and / or practice the method. Additionally, this device and / or method can be implemented using structures and / or functionalities other than one or more of the aspects set forth herein.

[0011] It should also be noted that the illustrations provided in the following embodiments are only schematic representations of the basic concept of the present invention. The drawings only show the components related to the present invention and are not drawn according to the actual number, shape and size of the components in the actual implementation. In the actual implementation, the form, quantity and proportion of each component can be arbitrarily changed, and the layout of the components may also be more complex.

[0012] Furthermore, specific details are provided in the following description to facilitate a thorough understanding of the examples. However, those skilled in the art will understand that aspects can be practiced without these specific details. To enable those skilled in the art to better understand the invention, the invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments. The terms "first" and "second" are used for descriptive purposes only and should not be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly specifying the number of indicated technical features. Thus, features defined as "first" and "second" may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of that feature. In the description of the invention, unless otherwise stated, "a plurality of" means two or more.

[0013] See Figures 1 to 2The distributed parallel test system for avionics products shown is suitable for testing avionics products in airborne systems. The parallel test system includes... The test management component is used for configuration management, health management, test configuration management, test data management, test program development, test model development, and application development management of avionics product testing. Specifically, it adopts a cloud computing-based architecture and provides non-real-time functions. The edge testing component adopts an edge computing-based architecture to provide near real-time functionality for avionics product testing. It is used for avionics product testing operation control, automated testing platform, data visualization, test support capability assessment, dynamic matching of test resources, runtime system, platform management, external simulation, and ICD management. The test interface component is used to realize the mutual conversion of physical and logical resources, configuration of logical resources and fault injection functions for avionics product testing. Specifically, the test interface component adopts real-time interface and processing method to provide real-time functions for avionics product testing. Real-time functions include the communication functions of avionics products, which are existing functions. Quasi-real-time functions do not include communication functions, but include data distribution. Non-real-time functions are generally test management functions. The interface adapter component uses passive devices to standardize the physical interface for avionics product testing, providing physical signal conversion functions for avionics product testing, enabling avionics products to achieve physical connection with the test interface component.

[0014] In one embodiment, the edge testing component generates test information according to the testing requirements of avionics products. The test information is sent to the test management component based on the cloud computing network architecture. The test management component enables the edge testing component to share the test information. In actual use, multiple edge testing components are generally used.

[0015] The resources of the test system are summarized and abstracted to establish a resource model for a single test system: display and control resources + processing resources + storage resources + real-time resources. After connecting multiple test systems, the methods for resource integration and optimization are as follows: display and control resources are integrated using a distributed method; processing and storage resources are integrated using a centralized method; and real-time resources are integrated using a standardized and generalized method.

[0016] In one embodiment, the test management component employs a big data processing information flow framework, such as Kafka. The edge testing component uses a software partitioning method (e.g., container partitioning) for test isolation, launching a corresponding number of software partitions based on the number of avionics products to be tested. Each partition hosts a test execution control and automated test platform to perform testing on the corresponding avionics products.

[0017] The specific design methods used in the above system are as follows: 1. Display and control resources are implemented by external devices such as computers, which connect to the control interface of the parallel test system via Ethernet for remote system access; processing and storage resources are centrally processed and stored using rack-mounted servers and resource virtualization technology; real-time resources are converted from logical to physical resources using standardized test interface equipment (configured with various interface cards and general connectors, etc.).

[0018] 2. Test System Information Sharing Methods The information from the testing system is summarized and abstracted to establish an information model: configuration information + test process information + system application information + test model information + test program information. The sharing of this information model specifically involves the generation, storage, distribution, and application of information. Users and publishers of information include test engineers, managers, system developers, and maintenance personnel. To maximize the efficiency and real-time nature of information sharing, a centralized approach should be adopted.

[0019] Specific implementation techniques of the method: The sharing of test information is achieved using a cloud-based network architecture. The information publisher, as a cloud user, publishes the information to the cloud application in real time, and then the application distributes it to users. Large volumes of information can be handled using big data processing frameworks such as Kafka.

[0020] 3. System Architecture Design Method Based on Hybrid Network Architecture The parallel testing system is functionally divided into non-real-time functions (test management components), near-real-time functions (edge ​​testing components), and real-time functions (test interface components). To ensure the normal operation of each function, a hybrid architecture should be adopted to isolate the various functions. The correspondence between the number of each architectural element in the system is 1 (test management component): M (edge ​​testing components): MN (test interface components): MN (interface adaptation components); Specific implementation techniques of the method: The test management component can adopt a cloud-based architecture to provide non-real-time functionality; the edge testing component can adopt an edge computing-based architecture to provide near-real-time functionality; and the test interface component can adopt real-time interface and processing technologies to provide real-time functionality. Interface adapter components should be implemented using passive devices as much as possible, providing only physical signal conversion functions.

[0021] 4. Parallel testing methods based on edge computing To increase test throughput, an edge testing component should be able to test multiple devices under test simultaneously, requiring the use of parallel testing methods. Edge computing technology can be used to launch multiple test instances simultaneously, performing parallel testing on multiple devices under test.

[0022] Specific implementation techniques of the method: Building upon edge computing technology, software partitioning techniques (such as containers) are employed for application-level isolation, with a corresponding number of software partitions launched based on the number of devices under test. Each partition houses applications such as test execution control and automated test platforms, responsible for testing one device under test.

[0023] Overall, the testing system established by this method can break through the limitations of a single testing system, realize the optimized integration of testing resources, the sharing of testing information, connect all isolated testing systems, connect the testing system with external systems (enterprise management systems, etc.), re-optimize and deploy testing system resources, and realize the controllability of the entire testing process within the system. Testing information is visible throughout the system, and it can simultaneously perform automated testing on different avionics products (such as various airborne computers), improving the testing efficiency of advanced aircraft avionics products. It can be applied to the testing of avionics products for domestically produced large passenger aircraft.

[0024] The product provided by this invention has been described in detail above. Specific examples have been used to illustrate the principles and implementation methods of this invention. The descriptions of the embodiments above are merely for the purpose of helping to understand the core ideas of this invention. It should be noted that those skilled in the art can make various improvements and modifications to the invention without departing from the principles of the invention, and these improvements and modifications also fall within the protection scope of the invention claims.

Claims

1. A distributed parallel test system for avionics products, suitable for testing of avionics products in airborne systems, characterized in that, The parallel testing system includes, Test management components are used for configuration management, health management, test configuration management, test data management, test program development, test model development, and application development management of avionics product testing. Edge testing components are used for the operation control, automated test platform, data visualization, test support capability assessment, dynamic matching of test resources, runtime system, platform management, external simulation and ICD management of avionics product testing; The test interface component is used to realize the mutual conversion of physical and logical resources, configuration of logical resources and fault injection functions for avionics product testing; Interface adapter components are used to standardize the physical interfaces for avionics product testing, enabling avionics products to achieve physical connection with the test interface components.

2. The parallel testing system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The test management component adopts a cloud computing-based architecture and provides non-real-time functionality. The edge testing component adopts an edge computing-based architecture to provide near real-time testing capabilities for avionics products. The test interface component adopts a real-time interface and processing method to provide real-time testing functions for avionics products; The interface adapter component uses passive devices to provide physical signal conversion functions for avionics product testing.

3. The parallel testing system according to claim 2, characterized in that, The edge testing component generates test information according to the testing requirements of avionics products. The test information is sent to the test management component based on the cloud computing network architecture, and the test management component enables the edge testing component to share the test information.

4. The parallel testing system according to claim 2, characterized in that, The test management component adopts a big data processing information flow framework.

5. The parallel testing system according to claim 3, characterized in that, The edge testing component uses a software partitioning method for test isolation. A corresponding number of software partitions are activated according to the number of avionics products to be tested. Each partition hosts a test operation control and automated test platform to realize the testing of the corresponding avionics products.

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