Rapid prototyping enhanced IMA system design and verification

Facing the growing complexity of the Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) system design, an enhanced IMA system design and verification approach based on the rapid prototyping is presented in this paper. General approach to avionics development includes three phases: conceptual development, prototype development and engineering development. In the conceptual development phase, the system requirements are validated by means of system modeling and simulation. The functions of system are validated and tested iteratively by simulation based on models. In prototype development phase, the prototypes based on models and their execution platforms are designed to verify the dynamics of system and performance in real time. With these prototypes and platforms, it is possible for the developer to test and validate processing capabilities of system at early phase of the system development process. In engineering development phase, the system is designed in details according to modified requirements and refined prototype. The focus of the approach proposed in the paper is to validate the system requirements and verify the system design at early phase of the system development process in order to reduce large modification at the later stages in the development due to errors in early design phase. System modeling and prototype simulation are emphasized to find the designing errors due to the misunderstandings in requirement specification. System models are used to verify system design iteratively and reused in different system design. An example is described to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.