An adaptive self-managing platform for cabin management systems

In the cabin domain, the degree of changeability is an important commercial parameter. This includes customization before initial aircraft delivery as well as in-service cabin rearrangements and upgrades. This requires a highly flexible cabin management system (CMS). Today`s CMSs face this challenge with configurable system architectures offering a vast change domain, however, the change process itself is very time consuming and error-prone. To overcome this issue our approach of an Adaptive Platform will make manual configuration widely dispensable. Thereby adaptivity means that all components of the platform’s software architecture are able to adapt to any CMS instance nearly without human intervention. Most of the system knowledge needed for this purpose, e.g., topology or communication requirements, is autonomously obtained by discovery mechanisms. The adaptive software architecture contains the following: (1) a data-centric communication middleware, (2) management services clearly separated from the application and (3) plug and play mechanisms for the integration of new application software and peripheral devices. Focus of this paper is the management service which abstracts faulty resources and coordinates global system behaviour w.r.t. aircraft’s state. As a proof of concept, an adaptive CMS demonstration system was realized. We think that the proposed architecture will increase the flexibility within the lifecycle of a CMS substantially. In addition, the contained management services raise the application’s abstraction level by disburden it from any management tasks. Further work on this topic may cover evaluation of the adaptive approach for more safety critical avionic systems or incorporate certification aspects such as automated documentation and testing.

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