Impact of fault-tolerant avionics on life-cycle costs

The authors examine the effects of a fault-tolerant implementation of a mission-critical avionics function on aircraft life-cycle costs. A triplex redundant architecture is contrasted with a simplex implementation of the same function. The cost analysis used in this study accounts for the major contributors to the cost of ownership. It is shown that an increased mission readiness and a high function reliability during the mission combine to provide a much higher overall mission success level and consequently a significant cost advantage for the fault-tolerant architecture. A fault-tolerant implementation of an avionics function can significantly reduce life-cycle costs by reducing the number of additional aircraft required to achieve desired levels of mission readiness and success. The high fault coverage inherent in such an implementation increases the probability of mission success by reducing the probability of undetected faults prior to the start of the mission and mitigating the effects of faults during the mission