ARINC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated (ARINC), established in 1929, is the leading provider of transport communications and systems engineering solutions for five major industries: (aviation, airports, defense, government and transportation). ARINC has installed computer data networks in police cars and railroad cars and also maintains the standards for line-replaceable units. It is headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland and has two regional headquarters: London (established in 1999) to serve the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and Singapore (established 2003) for the Asia Pacific region.
Contents |
[edit] History
ARINC, as it is known today, was incorporated in 1929 as Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated. It was chartered by the Federal Radio Commission (which later became the Federal Communications Commission) in order to serve as the airline industry’s single licensee and coordinator of radio communication outside of the government. The corporation's stock was held by four major airlines of the day. Today the stockholders include some 20 airlines and other aviation-related companies such as Boeing.
Not much later ARINC took on the responsibility for all ground-based, aeronautical radio stations and for ensuring station compliance with FRC rules and regulations. Using this as a base technology, ARINC expanded its contributions to transport communications as well as continuing to support the commercial aviation industry and US military.
In the 1950s ARINC developed the science of reliability analysis.
ARINC also developed the standards for the trays and boxes used to hold standard line-replaceable units (like radios) in aircraft. These permit electronics to be rapidly replaced without complex fasteners or test equipment, usually returning the aircraft to service in a short time.
In 1978 ARINC introduced ACARS© (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System), which is a data link between airports and civilian aircraft.
[edit] Standards Categories
- 400 Series : guidelines for installation, wiring, data buses, databases, etc...
- 500 Series : analog avionics equipment (used for example on B-727, DC-9, DC-10, and early models of B-737, B-747, and A-300 aircraft)
- 600 Series : design foundation for equipment specified per the ARINC 700 Series
- 700 Series : digital systems and equipment installed on aircraft of digital avionics systems. Among the topics covered by Specifications are data link protocols
- 800 Series : enabling technologies supporting the networked aircraft environment. Among the topics covered in this series is fiber optics used in high-speed data buses
- 900 Series : avionics systems in an integrated modular and/or networked architecture
[edit] Standards
ARINC 404 and 600 define the ATR and MCU form factors for line-replaceable electronics units in aircraft. These standards date back to the 1930s. [1]
ARINC 429 is the most common standard, as every modern aircraft of Airbus or Boeing uses this protocol. It provides the basic description of the functions and the supporting physical and electrical interfaces for the digital information transfer system. This protocol works either with 12.5 kHz to 14.5 kHz or 100 kHz and 32 bits of data length. Using the low speed mode of operation tolerances of 10% apply, whereas only 5% tolerances apply to the high speed operation mode.
ARINC 429 like the ARINC 561 standard is based on the ARINC 575 data format.
Other commonly known standards are ARINC 615 or, especially designed for the Boeing 777, ARINC 629, which is a further development of ARINC 429.
ARINC 424 is an international standard file format for aircraft navigation data (See [2]).
ARINC 629 is a multi-transmitter protocol where many units share the same bus.
ARINC 653 is a standard for partitioning of computer resources in the time and space domains. The standard also specifies APIs for abstraction of the application from the underlying hardware and software.
ARINC 661 normalize the definition of a Cockpit Display System (CDS), and the communication between the CDS and User Applications (UA). The GUI definition is completely defined in binary definition files (DF) - except the Look and feel, such as the CDS software is constituted of a kernel which is able to create the GUI hierarchy specified in the DF during initialisation, thus not needing to be recompiled if the GUI definition changes (apart from the Look and feel). The concepts used by ARINC 661 are close to those used in User interface markup languages, except that the UI language is binary and not XML based.
ARINC 664 define the use of a deterministic ethernet network as an avionic databus in modern aircraft like the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787.
ARINC 708 is the standard for airborne weather radar. It defines the airborne weather radar characteristics for civil and military aircraft. This standard also defines the way to control and get information from the radar.
ARINC 739 is the standard for communication between the MCDU and the systems attached to it.
