Trends in future avionics architectures incorporating radar processing technology

The author considers trends in avionics architecture development, and the selection of the underlying technology used to build the integrated avionics, given processing and platform requirements. Processing includes communications, navigation and identification, electronic warfare, electrooptics, video, controls and displays, and radar applications. The radar application is used to illustrate the requirements analysis process. It is pointed out that advanced packaging techniques, high-performance data networks, photonics and fiber-optic technologies support the implementation of advanced integrated avionics systems. The avionics architecture incorporates a system-wide approach to delivering sufficient communications connectivity and capacity. It also addresses the underlying signal processing engines used to perform applications processing. The integrated avionics architecture provides a coherent model of system operation, user services, and a development environment fully supportive of the application development process