Bringing the Strengths of the Aerospace Industry to Automotive Manufacturers
Two industries, but arguably one function: the transportation of goods and people. The commercial aviation industry has existed for just over a century and is now one of the biggest manufacturing industries in the world. Due to its very nature, it is also one of the most highly regulated, where safety remains paramount. The automotive industry has existed longer, is equally pervasive and is also founded on safety, but both industries face pressure to constantly improve every aspect of their efficiency, without sacrificing safety.
The idea of moving away from an ownership model was almost immediate in the early 1900s when commercial aircraft became available. Very few people would have the means or the ambition to own their own aircraft. The same cannot be said of the automobile; a concept embodied by Henry Ford’s dream of making a car anyone could afford to buy. But is that a dream still held by the majority?
Autonomous vehicles lead the way
The emergence of autonomous vehicles, coupled with low cost rental schemes, car- and ride-sharing initiatives, and a range of usage-based business models means fewer people may own vehicles in future. But that doesn’t equate to fewer cars on the road; that number is likely to increase, as more people will have access to a car — they just won’t need to own one.
This ‘mobility-as-a-service’ concept will see the automotive industry transitioning into something that more closely resembles the commercial aviation industry. Safety, reliability, up-time and overall efficiency will be the driving force behind its success, as consumers simply won’t tolerate a substandard service.
This will not only change the way we, as consumers, access vehicles, but how the industry manufactures them. The entire supply chain is likely to change to one where suppliers and systems must be highly interchangeable, offer greater functional consolidation, and more reliable integration.
There is a precedence for this approach. The Boeing 777 was the first aircraft to adopt a common ‘platform’, called the Aircraft Information Management System (AIMS). Delivered by Honeywell, the AIMS brought together a range of disparate systems into a single electronics cabinet. Honeywell also developed the majority of the software used in the system and as a result created the ARINC 653 time and space separation application executive (APEX). Now called Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA), ARINC 653 is the standard for avionics systems globally.
Another milestone was the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which not only ushered in the 787 Common Core System (CCS) based on ARINC 653, but brought about the emergence of new roles in the industry; IMA Platform Suppliers, IMA Applications Suppliers and IMA Systems Integrators. This IMA-role based approach has since become the way all large commercial aircraft are now developed.
These innovations may have been driven by necessity but they resulted in standards which have since provided both technological and commercial benefits. Some of these benefits can be measured in competitiveness where multiple suppliers can access the same market and thereby compete fairly. In turn, this market access and demand ensures continuous improvement, measured in term of the SWaP (size, weight and power) footprint of solutions. It is fundamental requirement for the manufacturers of modern commercial aircraft to ensure the SWaP footprint of systems continues to reduce as technology and capability increases, delivering direct operational cost savings.
The IoT, of course
Another way in which the aviation industry is leading the way is in the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). It will perhaps not be surprising to learn that nearly every system in a Boeing 787 is now connected, and that the Airbus A380-1000 will contain more than 10,000 sensors, but what may not be apparent is that this translates in to terabytes of data being created by every aircraft, every day.
The engines alone constitute a large part of this; the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan jet engines have in excess of 5,000 sensors and each one can produce over 10Gbyte/s of data. In comparison a Formula 1 car, a sport that is perhaps seen to be at the vanguard of technology, pushes out a mere 1.2Gbyte/s.
These vast amounts of data are already used to identify patterns that could warrant action and optimize both flight efficiency and platform maintenance. Trends are beginning to emerge that will help flight and ground operations keep aircraft operational for more of the time, while also improving overall safety.
As our society moves towards an ownership model for automobiles that more closely resembles that of the aerospace industry, these same issues will begin to influence the way in which manufacturers approach design. This is being driven not only by the IoT, but by socioeconomic trends that will ultimately demand changes be made. As we travel down this road, there will be many aspects of the aerospace industry that could be adopted by automotive manufacturers in order to make the transition possible.
Turning an aircraft into an IoT platform takes investment, of course, and this investment is expected to give a return in four specific areas: further improving safety; increasing efficiency; enabling a multi-vendor supply chain, and optimizing maintenance and repair operations (MRO).
The next generation of automobiles (and manufacturers) will need to embrace the IoT in a similar way to deliver similar benefits, if it is to successfully move towards mobility-as-a-service model.
Most notably will be the need for autonomous platforms; reliable solutions that can deliver reliable and (time) efficient travel, but do it while preserving and increasing the level of safety we can all expect from transport systems. The ‘cost’ of this new paradigm must be supported by a level of MRO equaled only by the aircraft industry. And it must all come at a lower cost in terms of fuel efficiency and, of course, the environment.
Embracing Open Standards
Standards will play a key role in this future. In recent years the automotive industry has developed a standard exchange format for software modules and their interfaces (or APIs), as well as development methodology. These have been standardized as the AUTOSAR layered software architecture, which effectively makes it efficacious to use electronic components from different manufacturers in multiple vehicles. With an emphasis on software content, the lifecycle of those components is extended, while all the time adhering to safety and quality requirements.
But AUTOSAR isn’t a complete solution. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are still constrained by their suppliers’ desire to provide isolated solutions, leading to a continued expansion in the amount of electronic systems in new cars. As such, it cannot support a SWaP methodology.
But it could. By moving the AUTOSAR standard towards an ARINC 653 model for integrated modular electronics, many of these disparate systems could be consolidated using platforms that offer virtualization, thereby allowing more services to run on less hardware while preserving safety, security and reliability.
Another area of convergence, based on open standards, is the human-machine interface. The graphics used in both the avionics and automotive markets are evolving at an amazing pace and this is being enabled by standards such as the Kronos Group’s OpenGL and OpenGL SC (safety critical). These standards now underpin safety critical cockpit displays, which has helped expand the market for OpenGL graphics drivers with a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) heritage but with RTCA DO-178C safety certification evidence.
These standards are truly open; available to anyone in the world. And while the technology they support may be proprietary, much of it is open source, proving that the scope for open standards extends far beyond any single vertical market.
If more evidence were necessary, one only look towards the new technical and business standard called the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), which is managed by The Open Group. This standard also uses a layered software architecture which places services and applications on top of an underlying operating system. The FACE consortium based the standard on ARINC 653 but extended it to include the UNIX standard, POSIX.
The FACE standard intentionally addresses both commercial and military standards; for example it is aligned to the Department of Defense Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Control Segment (UCS) architecture data model (now an SAE standard).
This model could be adopted by the automotive industry; an industry-wide consortium aimed at defining and developing a standard, layered software architecture for consolidated automotive electronics on shared hardware platforms. Such an initiative could really accelerate the innovation of electronic control systems needed to enable the autonomous automotive industry.
There is evidence to suggest that the automotive industry is, at an abstract level, following the commercial aviation industry; it must become more efficient without compromising safety, but also meet the demands of a changing market place.
Those changes are coming, in the form of a new ownership paradigm. Just as owning a car if you live in a busy metropolis is seen as unusual, that phenomenon could spread nationally. Shared ownership, shared usage or just paid usage models could be the norm. Just a few decades ago, the infrastructure needed to support such a model didn’t exist but, today, it is becoming a standard operating procedure.
Mobility as a service may feel very futuristic at the moment, but trends have a way of starting slowly and then suddenly picking up a lot of momentum, normally caused by outside economic influences. Perhaps this new paradigm isn’t so far away.
About the author:
Chip Downing is Senior Director of Business Development for Aerospace and Defense, Wind River. A 20-year veteran of the embedded systems industry and a pioneer in safety certification for commercial RTOSs, he previously was Vice-President of SCADE Global Sales for Esterel Technologies, selling a model-based design and development environment for DO-178B and IEC 61508 control systems. He has also lead sales, marketing, and consulting organizations at Validated Software, OnCore Systems, Mentor Graphics, Qualix Group, Ready Systems, and CENCO, now part of the Safran Group, selling and delivering DO-178B and other high reliability solutions.
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