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Well, you don't need to look further! Likely we have all answers to your questions! DapTechnology has the experience and the knowledge gained from several AS5643 avionics programs as well as the SAE standards involvement. We have been part of an amazing period in avionics history and have witnessed the emergence of a new and powerful communication technology for fly-by-wire systems.
DapTechnology can be your perfect partner for your IEEE-1394 and AS5643 integration tasks. Our AS5643 Development Suite can be either your one-stop-shopping location or we can provide you with individually tailored components and solutions. Check out our AS5643 product offerings and talk to us about our consulting and training services!
It all started with a concept: Back when the initial version of the AS5643 standard was developed DapTechnology envisioned providing a comprehensive product portfolio that can support an avionics program throughout its various stages. Well, after several years we are proud that we are nearly there! The AS5643 Development Suite is a collection of stand-alone AS5643 products. They were individually designed to meet specific requirements during the lifespan of an AS5643 avionics program. Together though they present a comprehensive tool set, which clearly demonstrates DapTechnology's lasting commitment to this technology and its customer base.
All products of the AS5643 Development Suite support key elements of the AS5643 standard. At the lowest level they all support transformer enhanced signaling as defined within the standard. Products with a higher level of protocol integration support hardware/firmware supported transmission timing, multi-bus, data payload encapsulation, redundancy and much more. As the standard allows for program-specific implementation variations - i.e. unique slash sheet variants derived from program specific ICDs - all of DapTechnology's AS5643 products are designed to allow customization and program-specific adaptations.
For many years FireSpy bus analyzers have become the standard for AS5643 bus analysis. They support AS5643 protocol decoding, timing analysis and many more useful features. FireSpys are used throughout all phases of a program life cycle since they are truly multi-featured and multi-purpose tools! FireSpys are used during the early technology evaluation phase (traffic generation, bandwidth-utilization analysis, topology and protocol simulation, ...), system design (topology analysis, verification of TX time mapping, channel mapping, ASM packet structure, ...), system development (traffic analysis, response analysis, verification of the redundancy concept, error injection, ...), production (device verification, vendor device test and acceptance, (sub)-system performance tests, ...), aircraft check out (aircraft performance validation, ...), in-field system test (failure analysis, ...). FireSpys are available in single, triple and even in nine-bus configurations in order to address the monitoring of individual, triple or the entire nine-bus architecture of typical avionics systems with triple redundancy.
DapTechnology offers a series of AS5643 host adapters with FireTrac being the undisputed star of this product line. FireTrac is the only interface solution that incorporates AS5643 from the bottom up and not only as a protocol add-on. Different personality profiles allow this device to take on various "identities" and therefore support different functionalities. Nowadays, FireTrac™ is integrated in the majority of Engineering Test Stations required for the various avionics programs implementing AS5643. And it has become the primary platform for early system architecting, engineering and device verification. Lately FireTrac™ also gained attention in the field of Prognostic Health Monitoring.
Other OHCI-compliant host adapters (using standard 1394 silicon, PCI and PMC form factors) are generally used for early System Design (in the VMC or LRU simulation phase or software development). As the interface uses standard TI silicon the adapters can be used as device substitutes and development units.
With growing program maturity the testing requirements change. As an example, the need to monitor bus traffic changes from timing and data structure verification towards monitoring of individual data values, e.g. an engine temperature sensor. For this purpose DapTechnology has developed FireMatrix, i.e. an integrated monitoring station that records aircraft data during ground inspection. Its ability to monitor data on up to nine buses and the ability to extract - in real-time - up to thousands of individual data elements makes FireMatrix a powerful and well-tested tool for aircraft inspection and maintenance.
In modern fly-by-wire a large number of cables and cable harnesses are used. The high-speed signaling of AS5643 (and 1394) requires high-quality cable manufacturing. DapTechnology has developed an AS5643 Cable Tester in order to standardize the testing and verification procedure with a well-established methodology.
DapTechnology is the leading vendor for released and field-tested AS5643 IP solutions. The goal is to provide an alternative to the available 1394 silicon. And rather than limiting the solution to 1394, DapTechnology incorporated key elements (timed transmission, ASM packet encapsulation, ...) of AS5643 directly into the hardware. This reduces system resource requirements and makes the solution ideal for 2nd generation implementations for both Vehicle Management Computers (VMCs) and Remote Nodes (LRUs). Due to their backwards compatibility with the Texas Instrument chip sets, the IP solutions from DapTechnology can also be used as a drop-in replacement to upgrade older AS5643 implementations by offering corrections and feature enhancements compared to those offered by COTS silicon. Besides its obvious role in Systems Engineering for the avionics node interface the solution is gaining momentum in the Prognostic Health Monitoring and this is largely due to the expandable feature sets of the IP approach.
Suitable Repeaters and Media Converters have become indispensable tools in about all AS5643 avionics programs. They are used to (i) extend cable runs between the aircraft and various systems, (ii) work as temporary LRU substitutes (in case a specific LRU is not available yet) during the aircraft manufacturing process or during maintenance. Repeaters can be built in multi-bus configurations, with or without battery power as well as with program-specific connector configurations (type, pin assignment, ...). Similar things apply to AS5643 Media Converters. Here the task is to convert the copper media typically used in AS5643 avionics into other media like GOF (glass optical fiber) or POF (plastic optical fiber) in order to overcome the length limitations of the copper wiring. Using a pair of converters, cable runs can be increased to 100m (GOF) or 50m (POF) at S400-S1600.
This group is completed with a series of COTS cables and harnesses for IEEE-1394 and Mil1394.
Our AS5643 training seminars are very well attended and received. They address all relevant aspects of the SAE AS5643 specification and its slash sheets. Furthermore, DapTechnology can easily adopt this training for different requirement levels, e.g. System Integration, Engineering, Production, Field Support and even Management and Sales staff. We can custom tailor the training to your very specific needs!