SYSGO, of Mainz, Germany, signed a licensing contract with EADS Group for the Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX).
“We are happy to see SYSGO joining our licensing program,” said Wulf Hoeflich, head of technology licensing at EADS/Airbus. “The EADS Technology License gives access to the AFDX-IP and trademark owned by Airbus and ensures that the implementation is vetted and ready for transfer, with processes that guarantee compliance with company regulations and governmental controls.”
Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX) is a standardized high-quality data network that provides guaranteed bandwidth and secure communications. It has been developed by Airbus for its new-generation airliners, starting with A380 jetliner and became a de-facto standard for networking in avionics as defined in ARINC 664.
The software-based AFDX solutions from SYSGO is one of the first DO-178B qualified implementation of the market. The implementation in software offers design possibilities that hardware solutions cannot provide. Software AFDX is portable, more flexible and much more affordable compared to the currently used ASICs. Portable AFDX consists of the AFDX Node implementation and the very small footprint host driver. ICMP and SNMP run on the AFDX Node, which gain more processing time for other tasks. The AFDX Node configuration is based on a simple CSV text file that allows the use of standard tools for configuration editing and also eases the automated conversion of existing AFDX configurations. SYSGO´s software AFDX avoids the high design risks and extensive development costs of a hardware solution and provides the opportunity to incorporate customer ideas and be ready for future challenges and future projects.