An approach to synchronize redundant flight critical computers using cross channel data links

The progress of an ongoing research and development project is presented in this technical note. The emerging concept of the scalable integrated flight control computers initiates the development of a redundancy management system operating in tandem with the host platform. The concept of such a device is realized in the hardware design of a frame based redundancy management system that incorporates a high speed cross channel data link. The device utilizes a programmable clock to synchronize the processes in lanes of the host redundant system. The recent accomplishment of the research is a newly developed methodology to model the operation between the host platform and the frame based redundancy management system. The methodology employs a modified Petri net to model the synchronized operation. The ranked positional weight method is implemented in an expert system to evaluate the robustness of the operation, such that an optimal cycle time of the developed redundancy management system can be identified.