iWave unveils the implementation of ARINC 818-2 IP Core in next-generation Combat Aircraft, designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Bangalore, India

July 21, 2022 -- In aircraft, video systems like cockpit displays, head-up displays, head Level displays, heads-down multifunction displays, flight simulators, etc. play an important role in critical functions like taxi and take-off assist, navigation, and collision avoidance, target tracking, and various other functions. ARINC 818 protocol standard was developed to handle any video format while maintaining flexibility. Since its adoption more than a decade ago, ARINC 818 continues to expand for real-time video applications due to its low latency, robustness, and high-throughput capabilities.

Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), a world leader in the design and development of Light Combat Aircrafts (LCA) was looking for a vendor with immense expertise in FPGA and embedded systems who could offer a solution to meet their mission-critical avionics requirements of high bandwidth, low latency video for Avionics cockpit display systems.

iWave Systems, being the leading FPGA design house and a leader in ARINC 818 solutions for both defence and aerospace applications, collaborated with ADA assisting them in the design of the aircraft cockpit display systems. For over 22 years iWave has helped customers to realize their ideas into reality with assured strong and unparalleled FPGA design-to-deployment competence.

Implementing ARINC 818 using an IP Core: In any engineering project, it is important to decide whether to create ARINC818 IP from the scratch or to buy an off-the-shelf solution for implementing ARINC 818 IP in avionics system LRUs.

Our esteemed customer and their requirement

The Avionics for next-generation Indian Combat Aircraft is been designed and developed by the ADA for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy (IN). ADA approached iWave for ARINC 818 IP RTL development for Avionics cockpit display systems. It is our privilege to announce that iWave’s ARINC 818-2 IP Core is been developed and delivered successfully.

ARINC 818-2 transmitter and receiver IP with ADVB frames at a bit rate of 4.25 Gbps were serially transmitted and received with 8b/10b encoding/decoding using a high-speed transceiver block in FPGA. The requirement was to transfer incoming video stream, custom data using the custom object, and ancillary data over ARINC 818 link depending on the video data and custom data availability.

Four different modes were implemented to support the above requirement.

• Video-Only Mode (ONLY Video, NO Custom data)
• Custom Data Only Mode (NO Video + ONLY Custom Data)
• Video + Custom Data Integrated Mode (Both Video + Custom Data)
• Only Ancillary Data Mode (NO Video + Custom Data)

iWave Systems upgraded the ARINC 818-2 transmitter and receiver IP core with custom data transmission and reception during the video blanking period as per the ICD document provided by the ADA and successfully delivered the ARINC 818 IP core to be used in next-generation Combat Aircraft Avionics.

“It was challenging in implementing the custom data transfer using custom ADVB object during video blanking period on our existing ARINC 818 IP core, and providing documentation equivalent to DO-254 standards,” said Sheik Abdullah, VP of Engineering, iWave Systems Technologies. “Being a part of the next-generation Combat Aircraft program was very exciting, and iWave treasures ADA for this opportunity. It was a pleasure serving our customers and we look forward to a fruitful relationship in the years to come.”

“Commendable job has been done by iWave Systems engineers during the development of ARINC 818-2 IP core by providing excellent technical expertise, especially on IP core development and FPGA designs with the realization of the IP core across FPGA families and delivery of elaborated literature on the IP core design. iWave demonstrated IP functionality in different FPGA platforms, various input video formats and ~1.2Gbps custom data” said Paramesh K.V, Scientist-G & Group Director, ADA Bangalore.

iWave Systems offers flexible licensing options of the IP core as per customer’s requests and delivers the same in week’s time accelerating customer’s time to market. iWave also offers design support, development boards, and engineering services for customization of the core.

Click here for more information on iWave’s ARINC 818 IP cores.