Portable code in future avionic systems

Integrated modular avionics (IMA) systems aim to provide highly flexible, reliable and integrated solutions for future aircraft systems. One desired property of IMA systems is to be able to exploit new advances in technologies as they become available, and not merely as part of a large "mid-life update" effort. Hence, the main goals of IMA are technology transparency and interchangeability. One key enabling technology required for IMA component is portable code. This provides a method by which software can be developed once, but executed on different platforms without change. Portable code should reduce development costs common during system modification and change. In this paper, portable code for IMA systems is discussed, with respect to some currently available portable code technologies (e.g. ANDF, Java and Inferno).