SPECIFICATION OF THE INVENTION

1. Title of the invention

Integrated Avionics Software & Data Uploading/Downloading and Health Diagnostic System

2. Field of Invention

This invention relates to method for testing and loading on-board avionics systems through Ethernet, More particularly for, loading mission data and software components and also for providing health diagnostic facilities through TFTP protocol.

3. Prior art and Draw backs of prior art

A conventional system performs aircraft data loading through separate hardware equipment on serial interface and Health diagnostic through test equipments. The main drawback of this approach is separate hardware equipments need to be developed. Ethernet commonly used interface in any of the avionics equipments for ground based operations. So developing an Ethernet based generalized loading and health diagnostic system will be a cost effective and powerful This invention removes the need for separate hardware for loading and health diagnostic purpose. This invention simplifies the process of loading, downloading and performing health test of the target H/W through Ethernet over TFTP protocol.

4. Aim of the Invention

The main objective of this invention is to provide a generalized method for uploading and downloading data, software components and performing hardware diagnostics for single board computers of Avionics systems.

5. Summary of the present invention

This invention presents a generalized method for

1. Loading Operational flight program of the flight management system to the Non-volatile memory.

2. Loading Mission data of the flight management system into the Non-volatile memory.

3. Downloading Mission data of the flight management system to ground station.

4. Performing health diagnostic tests for the flight management system. This invention mainly targets the avionics system consist of multiple single board computers connected through backplane bus. This invention defines a protocol mechanism to command and control the single board computers through TFTP protocol over Ethernet. Figure -1 represents the typical system where the invention is incorporated. This invention involves two parts, first part is host based S/W application and second part is target resident S/W component to interpret the commands from host.

Figure -2 represents the typical software modules in host and target for implemented in this invention. The important aspect of the system is the protocol used for the communication The important steps involved in the protocols are initialization, command and control, data file transfer and completion status. After the selection of necessary operation through the GUI provided in the host GUI, user initiates the transaction. The first operation initiated by the background host software is to establish a successful communication with the target. Initialization involves establishing a successful communication between host and target. Network IP address is used as primary ID for recognizing the single board computer of the avionics system. After a successful initialization, Command file is transferred to initiate the operation to be performed. This involves the informing the target Single board computer type of operation, number of files and the details of each file to be transferred. This invention supports transferring of binary and ASCII format to the target. After the command file is received target is ready for transferring or receiving of data files. Transaction will take place for the number of files commanded. After the transfer of each file, status file is transferred to indicate the successful completion of the transfer. After the completion of all the transactions requested by the user, the status is reported to the Host component to indicate the status of the transfer.

6. Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the typical avionics system Integrated Avionics Data & S/W UpLoading/DownLoading and Health Diagnostic System (IALHDS) is incorporated.

Figure 2 depicts the S/W components in the IALHDS system.

Figure 3 depicts the sequence of operations performed in the IALHDS.

Figure 4 depicts detailed view of file loading operation.

7. Detailed Description of the Invention

This invention is intended for the avionics computers connected through Ethernet forming a network. Figure- 1 represents block diagram of the typical avionics system where the IALHDS is incorporated. This Avionics system consists of four single board computers connected through back plane as well as Ethernet link. Each single board computer runs on Real-time Operating System (RTOS) and provides network stack, file system and TFTP protocol over Ethernet link. The host system is windows based loading station running Host Loader Component (HLC) and each single board incorporates Target Loading Component (TLC). Important aspect of this invention is to provide generalized method for loading, downloading and Health diagnostic throughout the avionics systems through TFTP file transfer. This invention defines a protocol to establish the communication, issuing commands, executing command and reporting the status to the user. Host system provides the graphical User Interface (GUI) to the user to select, command, target avionics system and the target board inside the avionics system. Host Loader Component (HLC) transfers this information to Target Loading Component (TLC) later through the command. TLC receives this information and checks if this command is for uploading / downloading or Health diagnostic. If the command is for health diagnostic Hardware Diagnostic Component (HDC) process this command and gives the data back to TLC for transferring.

The first important step of this invention is to establish a connection between the HLC and TLC. A .ini file is sent through TFTP protocol to the target from the HLC after the user command and the TLC receive this file and sends a .sts indicating the success of communication. Another important aspect of this invention is that .sts is a common file for indicating the success of any transaction. This simplifies the implementation of this protocol for any platform. After establishing successful communication, HLC sends the .cmd file to the TLC which consists of the operation to be performed by TLC. Figure -2 represents the protocol sequence for Uploading, downloading and Health diagnostic operations. Another aspect of this invention is that, After Receiving .cmd file TLC analyze the command and decides if the operation can be performed. If the operation is not supported, it is intimated to the HLC by .sts file. For example if the initiated operation is health test for flash device and the device does not exist in the SBC, then unsupported reply is sent in the .sts file. If the command is health diagnostic command, it is performed by HDC and the results are stored in the form of file and sent to the host. Another Important aspect of this invention is that, if the command is not supported then the error message is logged in the .sum file in the ASCII format and sent to the HLC. ASCII file format is in human readable format and the system logs the error cause in the summary file. This file can be used to perform postmortem analysis of the uploading, downloading and health diagnostic operations.

For the supported command operations like uploading, downloading or any target diagnostic tests, each operation is performed one by one as per the Figure -3. Another important aspect of this invention is heath diagnostic operations are performed by HDC and the results are logged in the file, then it is considered as the downloading operation. The test result for the number of tests mentioned in the .cmd are performed and stored in single file and transferred back to the HLC as a single file. The HLC reads this file and displays the result in the GUI for the user interpretation. Another important aspect is If the uploading , downloading or Heath diagnostic operations encounter any problem they are logged in the .sum file in ASCII format. Finally when the operations are completed .sum file is updated with the status of each operation and their status. .sum is transfer back to the HLC at the end of the transaction. This protocol provides a reliable command and control protocol for avionics ground based application with generalized mechanism.

CLAIMS

We claim

1. An Integrated system for Software & Data uploading/downloading and health monitoring for avionics systems, consisting of multiple SBC's either in a single or multiple Avionics units, consisting of host loader module, Hardware Diagnostic component and target loader module communicating through TFTP protocol.

2. An Integrated system as in claiml, where host module receives the status from the target module and displays the status of the uploading, downloading and health monitoring operations.

3. An Integrated system as in claiml, where host and the target establish the connection through .ini file and .sts file.
4. An Integrated system as in claiml, where the command for loading, downloading and health monitoring operations are sent through .and file.

5. An Integrated system method as in claiml, where each binary or ASCII files are Uploaded/Downloaded through TFTP protocol from host to target or Target to Host followed by a .sts file to intimate the status of file transfer.

6. An Integrated system as in claiml, where the Health diagnostic commands sent in .cmd is performed by, Hardware Diagnostic component and the results are sent back to host as an ASCII file as part of downloading operation.

7. An Integrated system as in claiml, where consolidated status of the uploading, downloading and health diagnostic operations are sent through .sum ASCII file from target to host.