September 2016

AEEC Datalink User Forum

Luc Emberger

MIAM workshop –
Introduction &
Requirements
 September 2016

Agenda

• MIAM introduction

• Use cases

• Initial main requirements

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Airline operational costs reduction - MIAM

MIAM

Challenge

The expected cost of A350 Cockpit Operational

communications was deemed prohibitive

$
MIAM

Airline Infrastructure
Solution

MIAM (Media Independent Aircraft Messaging ) allows :

- Reducing costs thanks to efficient compression
- Allowing more data transfer and avoiding congestion
- Enabling the access to cheaper pipes (IP Communications)

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

A350 Operational Communications costs

> 50%
« Raw » ACARS MIAM / ACARS
84 MB 17 to 55 MB

Per A/C & OPTION

per year

MIAM / IP
17 to 55 MB

Source: A350 test flights

MIAM ACARS operational since first flight

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM History

• APIM proposed in 2009

A841 MIAM Core MIAM over ACARS August 2011
A841-1 + MIAM over IP Middleware June 2013
A841-2 + MIAM Core Version 2 January 2014

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM in a nutshell

• MIAM (Media Independent Aircraft Messaging) is a communication

protocol for air-ground communications aiming at:
• Exchanging AOC messages between aircraft and ground over ACARS 618
and IP networks at least, without current networks limitation (e.g. 3.3kB max
over ACARS)
• Allowing existing ACARS A620 AOC exchanges between ground and aircraft
to occur over IP or any other network.

MIAM is a protocol specification and does neither cover local interfaces

definitions, nor overall nor architecture, nor form and fit of any product.

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Traffic Candidate to MIAM over ACARS

• PRE-FLIGHT Exchanged Data

• ELOGBOOK : synchronisation with ground

• IN-FLIGHT Exchanged Data

• ACMS : real-time report transmission

• POST-FLIGHT Exchanged Data

• ELOGBOOK : synchronisation with ground
• CMS : Real-time fault transmission
• DLCS : System configuration request/report
• ACMS : real-time report transmission
• PCS : Engine reports

• All phases
• AOC: OOOI, Weather, Delay, Fuel, ...

Between 80 KB and > 200 KB on average for A380 and A350

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM use case examples (1/4)

Nominal use case – end-to-end (DL) – MIAM hosted in the A/C and in the Airline network

Nominal use case – end-to-end (UL) – MIAM hosted in the A/C and in the Airline network

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM use case examples (2/4)

Nominal use case – copy to third party (DL) – MIAM hosted in the A/C and by the DSP

Nominal use case – copy to third party (UL) – MIAM hosted in the A/C and by the DSP

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM use case examples (3/4)

Airline center MRO Engine manuf DSP1 DSP2 Aircraft

MIAM ACARS MIAM end system

MIAM end system Protocol C Convergence
Core only

Shared use case – end-to-end (DL) - ACARS convergence function DSP based

Airline center MRO Engine manuf DSP1 DSP2 Aircraft

MIAM end system

MIAM ACARS
Protocol C
Convergence
MIAM end system
Core only

Shared use case – end-to-end (UL) - ACARS convergence function DSP based

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM use case examples (4/4)

Third party use case – end-to-end (UL) - uplink with copy – MIAM third party hosted

MIAM protocol (A841) only covers aircraft - ground interface, not ground-ground
interfaces.

Nevertheless, A620 has been extended to support transmission of bigger

messages on the ground-ground interface
(can be used between MIAM Core and MIAM ACARS Convergence function or
between MIAM Core and final user)

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Initial main requirements (1/4)

• MIAM shall allow user applications to exchange messages or files of

various size and contents through ACARS network, IP network and
potentially in the future through other networks accessible from the A/C.

• MIAM should allow sending ACARS (ARINC 620 – like) messages over
any kind of network (ACARS-A618, IP..).

• The airborne and ground communication servers supporting MIAM protocol

shall use ACARS network, IP network, and other network(s) as
independent communication paths: when routing decision has been
taken, a given user message shall be under the responsibility of a given
network until transmission is completed or declared failed.

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Initial main requirements (2/4)

• MIAM shall operate in a store and forward mode seen by the users
(“connexion less”)

• Exchanges of any data type shall be supported (ASCII, binary).

• AOC ARINC 633 compliant applications shall be able to use MIAM protocol.

• MIAM shall allow exchanges of larger messages over ACARS in a way

that is compatible with current ACARS systems constraints and
performances. Expected message volumes range between 3.3 and
100kBytes

• MIAM protocol shall support message sizes up to several Mbytes (4MB at

a minimum) over IP communication system.

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Initial main requirements (3/4)

• MIAM shall support ‘transfer - resume’, the ability to resume a transfer

stopped by either a no comm condition or a power down

• MIAM shall support ‘transfer abort’ (ability of the transmitting peer to notify
abortion of the transfer of a given message/file).
Note: useful if message reached its time to live – or if file was finally
downloaded on a usb key, in order to avoid unnecessary transmissions.

• MIAM shall be able to support simultaneous messages transmissions on

same communication system, as well as and on several underlying
communication system.
Special care is taken on bandwidth consumption.

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Initial main requirements (4/4)

• MIAM shall perform compression on a message per message basis,

when it effectively reduces the size of the message. Compression
mechanism shall be configurable

• MIAM shall be able to run over ARINC 823 security protocol for ACARS
communications, and over any security protocol for IP communications.

• MIAM shall implement mechanisms to protect messages integrity.

• MIAM shall provide end-to-end message delivery acknowledgement.

Note: this also covers the case where we want to acknowledge on ACARS a
downlink that was transmitted over IP.

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

MIAM Architecture requirements

• There shall be only one ground MIAM entity, and one airborne MIAM
entity

• Ground MIAM shall be able to be supported at DSP or Airline premises.

• Each message transfer shall only be handled by one specific ground MIAM
server (even if messages are routed via ACARS and others via IP)

• For backward compatibility purpose, on a given aircraft, legacy ACARS

communications shall be able to be supported simultaneously with
MIAM (MIAM is not mandatory)

Foundations for MIAM!

© AIRBUS Operations S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.
 September 2016

Questions

Thank you!

Question?

© AIRBUS S.A.S. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document.