Application of CPCI Single Board Computer in Airbus Inflight Entertainment System

经济全球化的发展使得地域间交流变得越来越频繁，而作为长途旅行的首选交通工具——飞机正越来越多的影响着人们的生活。虽然飞机速度很快，然而数小时甚至十几、二十小时的长途飞行依然让人疲惫不堪，因此如何消磨长途旅行的机上时间是一个棘手的问题。不过最近以来，如果您经历过越洋飞行的话，您一定会注意到飞行中的一个显著变化。飞机速度没有变快、机上餐饮质量也没有提高，可飞行时间似乎缩短了。改变的是机载娱乐系统！也许从洛杉矶到伦敦要飞11小时，但至少机载娱乐系统可以让时间看起来过的更快一些。

Traditional in-flight entertainment systems provide a large screen and multiple small screens on the plane. People can only watch entertainment programs edited by the airline. The movie played may not be what you want to watch; or the screen you see may be a little dark due to the angle of the seat. Now, some planes provide an in-flight entertainment system in front of each seat, where you can choose the movies, cartoons, news, music channels, and games you want to watch. In-flight entertainment systems have become a weapon for competition between airlines! Today, it would be unimaginable if there were no personal entertainment systems on transoceanic planes.

Figure 1 Airbus A330 in-flight entertainment system

In-flight entertainment systems are part of the aircraft's electronic systems, which extensively use embedded computing technology. GE Intelligent Platforms' rich experience in the embedded industry played an important role in how to install entertainment systems on the latest Airbus aircraft.

Airbus' main technical requirements are:

1. High performance, small size, light weight, and reinforced features;
2. It can be used in harsh environments and wide temperature conditions on aircraft, and needs to meet the I/O requirements of avionics applications;
3. The I/O requirements required GE Intelligent Platforms to be designed specifically for Airbus.

GE Intelligent Platforms has extensive experience in the field of avionics and fully understands Airbus' technical requirements. For this solution, we recommend the 3U CPCI single-board computer - CL11. We recommend the use of the 3U CPCI motherboard CL11 as the system controller, and specially design the I/O of CL11 according to the user's I/O function requirements. This solution adds functions that meet Airbus' requirements and provides long-term support for Airbus with stable financial capabilities.

Considering the limited space on the aircraft, we recommend using the 3U CPCI platform to minimize space usage while providing high performance.

(1) CL11 is a 3U CompactPCI single board computer, powered by Intel Core Duo or Core2 Duo processor. Due to the use of advanced power management technology, no fan is required on the board. The product supports up to four PCI Express interfaces, six USB 2.0 ports, two serial ATA ports, optional CompactFlash, VGA/SDVO, and one COM port on the backplane. CL11 can be ordered as a system or non-system slot single board computer. This product is particularly suitable for embedded computing applications that require low power consumption, and has a wide operating temperature range of -40° C to +75° C;

Figure 2 CL11

Figure 3 A429-PMC

(2) The aircraft uses the Arinc 429 standard for data communication and uses the A429-PMC card to implement Arinc 429 data communication;

(3) Use 3U CPCI Ethernet switch CP3-GESW8N to achieve network communication.

Figure 4 CP3-GESW8N

2. System Architecture

Figure 5 Basic architecture of the in-flight entertainment system

The system diagram of this solution is shown above. CL11 does not provide PMC slots, and the system can use 3U CPCI carrier boards to install PMC cards. In order to make the system more compact, GE Intelligent Platforms designed the CL11 I/O according to user needs, adding PMC slots that can directly install A429-PMC cards. All boards support reinforcement and wide temperature design.

In this case, we provided board customization services based on some special needs of users. We used GE Intelligent Platforms' rich experience in avionics systems to provide Airbus with a one-stop fully integrated system. Localized R&D, technical support and production all ensured good communication with Airbus technicians. We hope that our embedded products can help passengers enjoy their flights.