Aircraft Backplane Routing Optimization for Spatial Separation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The complexity of commercial aircraft network architectures, with thousands of sensors and redundant systems, poses challenges in designing optimal backplane and field bus routing that balances connectivity, survivability, and cost, particularly in ensuring continued safe flight and landing capabilities despite potential catastrophic damage.
Innovation Solution
An optimization engine is used to generate and identify optimal configuration solutions for sensor locations, remote data concentrator configurations, and switch configurations, ensuring connectivity, system survivability, and minimal cost, by analyzing the full solution space across multiple dimensions and applying constraints such as physical link routing and system separation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If spatial separation of redundant systems is increased to ensure system survivability, then reliability is improved, but device complexity and wiring cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the aircraft network into multiple spatially separated zones, with redundant systems distributed across different segments. This segmentation allows the network to maintain functionality even if one segment is compromised, thereby improving reliability while managing wiring complexity through modular organization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces spatial dimensionality as a key design parameter by distributing redundant systems across different physical locations and elevations within the aircraft. This three-dimensional spatial separation ensures that redundant systems are protected from simultaneous failure modes while maintaining manageable wiring routes through optimized spatial pathways.
2Reliability
If spatial separation of redundant systems is increased to ensure system survivability, then reliability is improved, but weight increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs preliminary routing planning where wiring pathways are pre-designed to efficiently connect spatially separated redundant systems. By optimizing the routes in advance and utilizing existing structural pathways, the design minimizes the total length and weight of wiring required to achieve the necessary spatial separation for reliability.
3Reliability
If optimal configuration is determined through exhaustive analysis of all possible locations and configurations, then reliability is improved, but loss of time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by evaluating a strategically selected subset of configuration options rather than exhaustively analyzing every possible arrangement. By identifying and focusing on the most promising configurations based on key criteria, the system achieves near-optimal reliability outcomes while significantly reducing the time required for design analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates feedback mechanisms where the optimization process uses results from evaluating certain configurations to guide the selection and evaluation of subsequent configurations. This iterative feedback approach allows the system to converge on optimal solutions more efficiently by learning from previous evaluations and avoiding redundant analysis of suboptimal pathways.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for optimizing the design of backplane and field bus routing for avionics network architectures determines a solution space of valid configurations defined by the intersection of universes corresponding to potential aircraft sensor locations, the data content relationships for each hosted application executing on the aircraft computing center, potential remote data concentrator (RDC) configurations, and potential backplane/field bus configurations for the avionics network architecture. The method includes identifying within the solution space, via an optimization engine, optimal configuration solutions of a desired optimality level based on connectivity constraints, system survivability constraints providing spatial separation of primary and redundant sensor and data collection systems, system robustness constraints associated with minimum functional capabilities for continued safe flight and landing capability, and an objective function characterizing overall desirability.