Digital Upset Prevention & Recovery of Fault Tolerance

Current aerospace trends are demonstrating a greater dependence on digital technology for flight critical functions. With many of these systems, commercial off the shelf (COTS) electronics are being applied to commercial aviation products. These same types of COTS electronics are additionally being used for a variety of space and defense applications as well.


However, due to digital technology's soft fault characteristics and the inherent design limitations of COTS electronics to function in "high energy" environments (i.e. electromagnetic, radiation), these technologies present sizable challenges for use in aerospace applications.

Honeywell is working with NASA on various programs to pioneer the rapid computational recovery (demonstrated for the electromagnetic environment) to support the use of digital technologies for critical flight functions:

	NASA HSR Contract NAS1-20219 (1995-1999)
First stage prototype of transparent recoverable computer platform   NASA testing results spawned additional contracts
	NASA CRA NCC-1-393 (2000-2005)
Recoverable computer platform in distributed flight control system(closed loop)   Integrated and demonstrated at NASA LaRC SAFETI Lab
	Development of Non-Volatile RAM (2004- beyond):
Recoverable computer platform in distributed flight control system(closed loop)   Hardened memory to support rapid computational recovery