A versatile input interface for avionic computers

During the last decades, the Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) concept has allowed important cost- savings in the development of avionic equipment thanks to an important reduction of the number of different modules. However, modularity in avionics is still limited by hardware concerns: current avionic computers have to interface with a lot of different inputs or outputs, from environment sensing to inter- computer communications, and the applications which can be hosted on the computer directly depends on these inputs and outputs. In this paper, we propose a new concept of input interface, named versatile input interface, which could facilitate the design and reuse of avionic equipment by allowing more flexibility in the development of Input/Output boards. The versatile input interface is meant to be used in avionic environment, and therefore will comply with avionic environmental procedures such as DO160-F [1].