Safety Platform from MEN
Safety Platform for Safety-Critical Applications in the Railways and Avionics Market
Developed originally as a safe computer for controlling the freight load system of the Airbus A400M, the computer assembly D602 is now also available as COTS hardware for CompactPCI® systems. It is used in safety-critical applications in airplanes (up to DAL-A) and in trains (up to SIL 4).
D602 provides complete triple redundancy of the hardware components on a single board for the safe operation of critical systems and at the same time high availability. Critical functions like voters are implemented as IP cores in the FPGA which also has a triple-redundant structure. Using voters it is ensured that at least two of the three redundant components provide the same result in order to guarantee safety. The system remains completely operational even if one of the three redundant components fails, providing the required availability.
D602 has been developed according to DO-254 and is airworthy in a safety-critical environment up to DAL-A. Additional diagnosis mechanisms (BITE, e.g. extensive self tests) help to detect latent errors before they lead to a system error, increasing safety and availability. For the same purpose, the design is oriented towards strictly deterministic operation avoiding interrupts and DMA.
