The aerospace market is transforming. While some requirements, such as safety or certifiability remain unchanged, other needs, such as reduced size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) and the ability to handle and transmit large amounts of data, require new or upgraded products and solutions. When it comes to avionics, for example, system architectures now implement additional or upgraded functionalities that also require larger amounts of data to be transmitted, yet components used in fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft should also be small and light-weight to save space, electrical power, and fuel.
TTTech Aerospace supplies hardware and software that meets the needs of the market and also supports its customers in building, integrating, testing, verifying, and certifying their systems. Javier Gadea Ezquerra, Product Manager Aerospace at TTTech, explains: “TTTech Aerospace’s product portfolio is based on open standards. We are currently extending our solutions portfolio and are progressing rapidly in the development of the TTEEnd System A664 Pro (XMC), our certifiable end system card that addresses the main needs of the aerospace market. It supports the open systems architecture (OSA) approach, reduces time-to-market, and is certifiable to the highest aviation safety standards (DAL A). We make use of our proven DAL A certifiable end system core IP and have incorporated all lessons learned from the development of previous end system card generations.”
The open systems architecture (OSA) approach allows manufacturers to build modular solutions that improve interoperability, upgradability, and integration for safety-critical, high integrity, and high-availability applications such as flight controls in fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft. Solutions and components based on open, international standards allow manufacturers to choose from a range of suppliers when building their systems, which reduces risk, cycle times, and integration effort.
The TTEEnd System A664 Pro (XMC) is an end system card for use in flight programs, certifiable to the highest safety level (DAL A) for complex hardware (RTCA DO-254) and software (RTCA DO-178C) in the aerospace sector. It is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product that helps reduce time-to-market and reduces the risk for suppliers, as it is certifiable and versatile. It supports three different traffic classes (standard Ethernet acc. to IEEE 802.3, rate-constrained acc. to ARINC 664 part 7, and Time-Triggered Ethernet acc. to SAE AS6802) on one physical medium and offers 1 GbE data rates.
Development of the TTEEnd System A664 Pro (XMC) began in 2022. TTTech Aerospace has already completed the Requirements Review phase and submitted the initial certification package (Stage of Involvement 1) for review. The prototype was also designed and manufactured and is currently being tested by customers. This year, TTTech Aerospace is set to complete the Critical Design Review milestone and will begin manufacturing the flight product representative units for early integration. The new end system card is due to be released to the market in 2025.
