AAE 3156

INTRO TO AVIONICS AND

NAVIGATION SYSTEMS

[Avionics]

Kamlesh Kumar
Mentor of Change, ATL, NITI Aayog, Govt of India
Director, iSpAgro Robotics Pvt Ltd
Coordinator, Centre of Excellence in Avionics and Navigation, MAHE
Assistant Professor Senior Scale, Dept. of Aeronautical, MIT
Email: kamlesh.kumar@manipal.edu;
Mobile: +91-7348852747/7667100873
Telephone: 082029 25483/488/489/484
INTRODUCTION
•Avionics

•System Engineering

•System Engineering Approach in the development

of Avionics Systems

•Assignment/Case study
Avionics : Aviation Electronics
Definition: Contains all sub-domains relating to avionics,
cockpit and Air traffic management (ATM)-related
aircraft systems.

All electronic and electromechanical systems and

subsystems (hardware and software) installed in
an aircraft or attached to it
System Engineering:

A t NASA, “systems engineering” is defined as a methodical, multi-disciplinary

approach for the design, realization, technical management, operations, and retirement
of a system.

A “system” is the combination of elements that function together to produce the

capability required to meet a need.

 The elements include all hardware, software, equipment, facilities, personnel,

processes, and procedures needed for this purpose; that is, all things required to
produce system-level results.

 The results include system-level qualities, properties, characteristics, functions,

behaviour, and performance.

Reference: NASA SYSTEMS ENGINEERING HANDBOOK

System Engineering:

Systems engineering is the art and science of developing an operable system

that meets requirements within imposed constraints.

 Systems engineering is holistic and integrative. It incorporates and balances the

contributions of structural, mechanical, electrical, software, systems safety, and
power engineers, plus many other, to produce a coherent whole.

 Systems engineering is about trade offs and compromises, about

generalists rather than specialists.

 Systems engineering is not only about the details of requirements and

interfaces among subsystems.

Systems engineering is first and foremost about getting the right design—
and then about maintaining and enhancing its technical integrity, as well as
managing complexity with good processes to get the design right.

 The principles of systems engineering apply at all levels.

Reference: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

The Scope of Systems Engineering

 Since the late 1980’s, many aerospace related government and industry
organizations have moved from a hardcore, technical leadership culture (the
art) to one of systems management (the science).

 History has shown that many projects dominated by only one of these
cultures suffer significant ill consequences.

 Organizations that focus mainly on systems management often create

products that fail to meet stakeholder objectives or are not cost effective.
The process often becomes an end unto itself, and we experience “process
paralysis.”

 Organizations that focus solely on technical issues often create

products or services that are inoperable, or suffer from lack of
coordination and become too expensive or belated to be useful.

Reference: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

The Scope of Systems Engineering
 To achieve mission success, we must identify and develop systems engineers
that are highly competent in both technical leadership and systems
management.

 That is why we focus on the complete systems engineer, who embodies the
art and science of systems engineering across all phases of aerospace
missions—a type reflected in Figure 1.

 In any project, it is critical that systems engineering be performed

well during all lifecycle phases.

 The scope of systems engineering and the associated roles and

responsibilities of a systems engineer on a project are often negotiated by
the project manager and the systems engineer.

The scope of systems engineering and the activities for which the systems engineer
is both responsible and accountable should be understood and documented early
in the project.

Reference: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

 The Scope of Systems Engineering.
Systems engineers often focus on one lifecycle phase like architecture and design versus
development or operations, but good systems engineers have knowledge of and experience
in all phases.
=>Systems engineering plays a key role in the project organization. Managing a
project consists of three main objectives:

 managing the technical aspects of the project,

 managing the project team, and
 managing the cost and schedule.

=>Systems engineering is focused on the technical characteristics of decisions

including technical, cost, and schedule and on providing these to the project
manager.

=>The Project Planning and Control (PP&C) function is responsible for

identifying and controlling the cost and schedules of the project.

=>The project manager has overall responsibility for managing the project team
and ensuring that the project delivers a technically correct system within cost and
schedule.
=>Note that there are areas where the two cornerstones of project management, SE
and PP&C, overlap.

=>In these areas, SE provides the technical aspects or inputs whereas PP&C
provides the programmatic, cost, and schedule inputs.
 The Common Technical Processes and
the SE Engine

 There are three sets of common technical processes in NPR 7123.1,

 NASA Systems Engineering Processes and Requirements: system design,

product realization, and technical management.

 The processes in each set and their interactions and flows are illustrated by the
NPR systems engineering “engine” shown in FIGURE 2.1-1.
System Design Processes: The four system design
processes shown in FIGURE 2.1-1 are used

 to define baseline stakeholder expectations,

 generate baseline technical requirements,
 decompose the requirements into logical and behavioral
models, and
 convert the technical requirements into a design
solution that will satisfy the baselined stakeholder
expectations.
Product Realization Processes: The product realization
processes are applied to each operational/ mission
product in the system structure starting from the lowest
level product and working up to higher level integrated
products.
Technical Management Processes: The technical management
processes are used to establish and evolve technical plans for the
project,

 to manage communication across interfaces,

 to assess progress against the plans and requirements for the
system products or services,
 to control technical execution of the project through to
completion, and
 to aid in the decision-making process.
 TABLE 2.1-1 Alignment of the 17 SE Processes to AS9100

AS9100 is a widely adopted and standardized quality management system developed

for the commercial aerospace industry.
 The life cycle phases

=>project system maturity, as the project progresses from a feasible concept

to an as-deployed system; phase activities; Key Decision Points (KDPs);
and major project reviews.
FIGURE 2.2-1 Miniature Version of the Poster-Size NASA Project Life Cycle
Process Flow for Flight and Ground Systems
 Distinctions between Product Verification
and Product Validation

=>Product Verification and Product Validation processes may be similar in nature, but
the objectives are fundamentally different:

 Verification of a product shows proof of compliance with requirements—

 that the product can meet each “shall” statement as proven though performance
of a test, analysis, inspection, or demonstration (or combination of these).

 Validation of a product shows that the product accomplishes the intended purpose
in the intended environment—

 that it meets the expectations of the customer and other stakeholders as shown
through performance of a test, analysis, inspection, or demonstration.
 Cost Effectiveness Considerations

 The objective of systems engineering is to see that the system is designed, built,
and can be operated so that it accomplishes its purpose safely in the most cost-
effective way possible considering performance, cost, schedule, and risk.

 A cost-effective and safe system should provide a particular kind of balance

between effectiveness and cost. This causality is an indefinite one because there
are usually many designs that meet the cost-effective condition.

 Design trade studies, an important part of the systems engineering process, often
attempt to find designs that provide the best combination of cost and effectiveness.
At each cost-effective solution:

 To reduce cost at constant risk, performance must be reduced.

 To reduce risk at constant cost, performance must be reduced.

 To reduce cost at constant performance, higher risks must be accepted.

 To reduce risk at constant performance, higher costs must be accepted.

 Human Systems Integration (HSI) in the
SE Process

 As noted at the beginning of NPR 7123.1, the “systems approach is applied to all
elements of a system (i.e., hardware, software, human systems integration.

 In short, the systems engineering approach must equally address and integrate these
three key elements: hardware, software, and human systems integration.

 Therefore, the human element is something that integration and systems engineering
processes must address.

 The definition of “system” in NPR 7123.1 is inclusive;

i.e., a system is “the combination of elements that function together to produce

the capability required to meet a need.

The elements include all hardware, software, equipment, facilities, personnel,

processes, and procedures needed for this purpose.
 Competency Model for Systems
Engineers

There are four levels of proficiencies associated with each of these

competencies:

1. Team Practitioner/Technical Engineer

2. Team Lead/Subsystem Lead

3. Project Systems Engineer

4. Chief Engineer
TABLE 2.7-1 NASA System Engineering
Competency Model
TABLE 2.7-1 NASA System Engineering
Competency Model
TABLE 2.7-1 NASA System Engineering
Competency Model
TABLE 2.7-1 NASA System Engineering
Competency Model
 Synthetic Vision System

A “synthetic vision system” is an aircraft cockpit display technology that presents the
visual environment external to the aircraft using computer-generated imagery in a
manner analogous to how it would appear to the pilot if forward visibility were not
restricted.

A synthetic vision system (SVS) is a computer-mediated reality system for aerial vehicles,
that uses 3D to provide pilots with clear and intuitive means of understanding their
flying environment.
Synthetic vision is also a generic term, which may pertain to computer vision systems
using artificial intelligence methods for visual learning, see "Synthetic Vision using
Volume Learning and Visual DNA".
Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of
environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the
comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.

 Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive,

foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations,
many of which involve the protection of human life and property, including
 aviation,
 air traffic control,
 ship navigation,
 health care,
 emergency response,
 military command and control operations, and
 offshore oil and
 nuclear power plant management.
Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA)

 Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the

primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.

 The formal definition of SA is broken down into three segments: perception

of the elements in the environment, comprehension of the situation, and
projection of future status.

 Three facets of SA have been in focus in research:

 SA states,
 SA systems, and
 SA processes.

 SA states refers to the actual awareness of the situation.

 SA systems refers to the distribution of SA in teams and between objects in

the environment, and to the exchange of SA between system parts.

 SA processes refers to the updating of SA states, and what guides the

moment-to-moment change of SA.