ATS redundant design in support of system & mission sustainability

Today system reliability, availability, serviceability, and manageability (RASM) are becoming more crucial as computer based systems continue to increase in complexity and importance to our daily lives. Redundancy is a viable approach to improve the RASM attributes of a system. There are many forms of fault tolerant/redundant system architectures employed in both commercial and military /aerospace systems today. This paper provides an overview of the primary redundant system architectures in use and then compares the primary attributes of these systems. The authors then introduce an innovative hybrid system architecture called Dynamic Dual Redundancy (DDR) which preserves the reliability of its secondary, or redundant unit, via a novel repair/refresh process which returns the unit to its original level of reliability. The paper then provides quantitative examples of DDR benefits from a system availability/sustainability perspective. The authors then portray a state diagram of a typical DDR system as well as a description of a high-level reference system architecture which embodies the DDR paradigm while leveraging many benefits of FPGAs.