Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) in avionics is being considered as a standard capable of providing more real-time and safety-critical capabilities than AFDX, the current standard in avionics communications. A TSN profile is therefore being developed for the aerospace domain by IEEE. Hence, this research outlines the deployment of a testbed aimed at validating TSN in avionics to ensure that this technology meets the stringent timing and latency requirements of avionics applications. To this end, a daisy chain or ring topology has been set up for the validation of the testbed, as this topology provides redundancy of paths without the need to add additional devices. This work presents latency and jitter measurements under different priority configurations and different channel saturation conditions, showing no packet loss and demonstrating the reliability of TSN for time-critical applications. A comparison with Avionics Full Duplex Ethernet (AFDX) simulations was also made, highlighting the weaknesses of AFDX. By providing a comprehensive platform for testing and validation, the testbed will contribute to the advancement of TSN technology in aerospace applications, ultimately improving the safety and efficiency of aircraft operations.

Aircraft are composed of many electronic systems: sensors, displays, navigation equipment, and communication elements. These elements require a reliable interconnection, which is a major challenge for communication networks since high reliability and predictability requirements must be verified for safe operation. In addition, their verification via hardware deployments is limited because these are costly and it is difficult to try different architectures and configurations, thus delaying design and development in this area. Therefore, verification at early stages in the design process is of great importance and must be supported with simulation. In this context, this work presents an event-driven link-level framework and simulator for the validation of avionics networks. The tool presented supports communication protocols commonly used in avionics, such as Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX), as well as Ethernet, which is used with static routing. Also, the simulator provides accurate results by employing realistic models for various devices. The proposed platform was evaluated in the Clean Sky’s Disruptive Cockpit for Large Passenger Aircraft architecture scenario, showing the capabilities of the simulator. Verification speed is a key factor in its application, so the computational cost was analyzed, proving that the execution time is linearly dependent on the number of messages sent and that the increase in the number of nodes has few quadratic components.

Aircraft are composed of many electronic systems: sensors, displays, navigation equipment and communication elements. These elements require a reliable interconnection, which is a major challenge for communication networks as high reliability and predictability requirements must be verified for safe operation. In addition, their verification via hardware deployments is limited because these are costly and make difficult to try different architectures and configurations, thus delaying the design and development in this area. Therefore, verification at early stages in the design process is of great importance and must be supported by simulation. In this context, this work presents an event-driven link level framework and simulator for the validation of avionics networks. The presented tool supports communication protocols such as Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX), which is a common protocol in avionics, as well as Ethernet, used with static routing. Alsa, accurate results are facilitated by the simulator through the utilization of realistic models for the different devices. The proposed platform is evaluated in Clean Sky's Disruptive Cockpit for Large Passenger Aircraft architecture scenario showing capabilities of the simulator. The speed of the verification is a key factor in its application, so the computational cost is analysed, proving that the execution time is linearly dependent on the number of messages sent.