Russia Starts Flight Tests Of Next-Gen Integrated Avionics Suite Of PAK-FA Fighter Jet

Russian United Aircraft Corporation has started flight tests of a new next-generation integrated avionics suite of T-50 (PAK-FA) fighter aircraft.

The integrated structure of the board of the aircraft T-50 equipment replaces the system ‘Baguette’ designed in 2004. The new ‘integrated modular avionics’ (IMA) combat system will solve the problem of automatic detection and identification of the most dangerous targets, the construction of the optimal route, the optimal solution of tasks using weapons and defense aircraft, as well as the reconfiguration of systems in case of failure in real time, according to the UAC blog post last week.

The IMA aircraft systems control functions are assigned to a central computer that can control the use of weapons, defense, and intellectual support multimode pilot. The central computer simultaneously performs the role of an e-pilot, and electronic navigator and electronic flight engineer.

The volume of its onboard software already exceeded 4 million lines of code, and is still further to implement a set of complex functional aircraft control modes and complex information processing.

Data exchange is performed via fiber optic channels. The transition from copper to fiber allowed at times to increase the speed and volume of data transmission in order to reduce the weight of the cable when the network quality and enhance its noise immunity. If the transmission of the traditional copper cable provides data rate of the order of 10-100 Mbit / s, then the fiber is almost 1000 times more - 8 Gb / s.

Network structure of the complex increases the reliability of operation of all devices - when any failure occurs calculator automatic switching systems on the other block, and the use of centralized processor giving almost halve the weight of the unit. FDC performance increased more than tenfold, failure safety has increased more than fourfold. For the first time in Russian history the head role in the performance of the overall platform design and development played Samoletnaya firm. 

“Multi-core gives us almost unlimited possibilities for the design of fault-tolerant configurations, while saving on weight, power consumption and cost of the equipment,” says Dmitry Gribov, chief designer for Sukhoi and the director of the Directorate of the CCD integration.