Stochastic delay analysis of a wireless safety-critical avionics network

Abstract

With the technological progress of wireless technologies, an alternative avionic communication architecture based on wireless connectivity has been proposed to cope with the emerging avionics issues, i.e., reducing weight and costs. The performance analysis of such a proposal is conducted herein to quantify the impact of unreliable wireless links on transmission delays, and the efficiency of retransmission-based mechanisms to enhance the system reliability. First, an adequate system modeling, based on Stochastic Network Calculus, to capture the loss process of unreliable links is detailed. Then, stochastic end-to-end delay bounds are analyzed. Finally, the introduced approach is illustrated through a representative avionics case study. Numerical results show the efficiency of such a proposal to enhance the system’s reliability and scalability.