ARINC 818 : Avionics Digital Video Bus

Overview

On board of a modern aircraft, cockpit video equipment manufacturers are implementing ARINC 818 protocol, an avionics digital video bus that offers high bandwidth, low latency, and uncompressed video transmissions.

Context

The reliability and robustness of the video interfaces must be tested during the design of this equipment.

arinc 818 - AdobeStock Cockpit

Problem

Inside an airplane, helicopter or any other aircraft, the video equipment is composed of servers that transmit streams from RADAR or receive streams from cameras. These video streams are sent to the cockpit displays or to the head-up displays.

Manufacturers must ensure that there is no loss of images during reception and transmission, and that the system is resistant to any disruption. Signal transmission must be as low latency as possible to ensure that the display is in line with the real-time display.

Solution with ARINC 818 products

The ARINC 818 protocol, based on the FC-AV (Fiber Channel Audio Video) standard, allows the video stream to be transported with determinism and very low latency. The ARINC 818 Supplement 3 standard supports streams from 12 Gbps for 64b/66b encoding, up to 28 Gbps for 256b/257b encoding.

TECHWAY and GREAT RIVER TECHNOLOGY offer product lines dedicated to the ARINC 818 generation or acquisition equipment testing:

  • To test the proper functioning of an equipment, GREAT RIVER TECHNOLOGY has specially developed the Velocity range of PCIe boards for ARINC 818 acquisition, generation and conversion.
  • If the equipment manufacturer creates its own ARINC 818 IP, the VPA can analyze the protocol bit by bit to quickly detect the dysfunction in the protocol.
  • To test multiple equipment at the same time, the SPIDER switch can duplicate or distribute the ARINC 818 stream to up to 10 links at rates up to 8,5 Gbps.
  • The Xf Tuner system is suited for testing the robustness of an equipment. It allows the error injection – such as disparity or CRC – into an ARINC 818 stream and thus ensures protocol compliance.

Result

All ARINC 818 equipment designed by TECHWAY and GREAT RIVER TECHNOLOGY can be used to test embedded equipment during lab design phases and mass production.

Satisfaction

GREAT RIVER TECHNOLOGY is a global leader and pioneer of ARINC 818. All their products are reliable and robust. They are used by all major aircraft manufacturers to test, qualify, validate, and produce ARINC 818 equipment.