Aerospace and Defense Print E-mail

Background

After over twenty years of activity in the leading European and North American programs, CES has analyzed the sources of unexpected delays, costs and errors. CES has developed a unique concept by following the principles of modular electronics, which offers a significant improvement over the COTS method.

CES aerospace systems provide all hardware elements (processor boards, avionic interfaces, real-time networks, high-speed system couplers, storage devices, chassis), software elements (operating systems, libraries, examples and drivers for the required interfaces) and services, so that the user receives an application-ready configuration. A unique feature of CES aerospace systems is the “on-the-button” start-up capability embedded in Flash EPROM.

CES systems are used in five different applications:
  • Test and validation rigs
  • Flight test computers
  • Simulators for aircraft integration
  • Airborne mission computers
  • Primary flight computers
Preassembled elements for aerospace are used by Alenia, BAE Systems, Dassault Aviation, EADS Airbus, EADS CASA, EADS Defence Electronics, EADS Military Air Systems, Eurocopter, L-3Com, LIEBHERR Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Rockwell-Collins.

Modular Function Unit Concept

Combining cost reduction and high-technology requirements, CES has developed a complete scalable system using COTS principles to define modular function units. The function units handle most of the existing aircraft buses, including general-purpose intelligent user-programmed interfaces for custom protocols, interfaces for most of the existing recording devices and network interfaces. A modular software package allows any combination of any variation of function units within a distance spanning over hundreds of meters. The software incorporates the latest network technologies to provide remote reconfiguration procedures. The system covers all of the requirements from a single portable bus analyzer to a full aircraft recording system.

A function unit is a combination of hardware, firmware and software elements, which can be combined directly by the user after training on reconfiguration methods. For CES, delivering a bundled package implies providing a customer with hardware, software, training and free assistance.

Hardware Elements

CES aerospace hardware elements include any combination of the following:
  • PowerPC-based real-time processors (VPX, VME, CompactPCI, PMC)
  • PMC extension boards for up to four additional PMCs
  • Avionic interfaces (AFDX®, MIL-STD 1553B, EFABUS, ARINC 429, CANBUS, analog I/O, discrete I/O, PANLINK, CCDL, high-resolution global datation, custom)
  • Network interfaces (Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and ATM in either PMC or AdvancedMC form factor)
  • High-speed links (RocketIO, PCI)
  • Chassis (VPX, VME, CompactPCI, ARINC 600, ATR)

Software Elements

CES aerospace software elements include any combination of the following:
  • POSIX compliant real-time operating systems (VxWorks®, LynxOS® and Linux®)
  • DO-178B certifiable real-time operating systems (VxWorks® 653 and Integrity®)
  • Multiprocessing extensions (CES BP-Net)
  • Drivers for all of the elements included in the system
  • Libraries and examples

Since 1986, CES has supplied complex systems to the Aerospace and Defense market.


Commercial Aircraft


Military Aircraft


Unmanned Aerial Vehicles


Defense