A highly reliable, autonomous data communication subsystem for an advanced information processing system

The need to meet the stringent performance and reliability requirements of advanced avionics systems has frequently led to implementations which are tailored to a specific application and are therefore difficult to modify or extend. Furthermore, many integrated flight critical systems are input/output intensive. By using a design methodology which customizes the input/output mechanism for each new application, the cost of implementing new systems becomes prohibitively expensive. One solution to this dilemma is to design computer systems and input/output subsystems which are general purpose, but which can be easily configured to support the needs of a specific application. The Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS), currently under development has these characteristics. The design and implementation of the prototype I/O communication system for AIPS is described. AIPS addresses reliability issues related to data communications by the use of reconfigurable I/O networks. When a fault or damage event occurs, communication is restored to functioning parts of the network and the failed or damage components are isolated. Performance issues are addressed by using a parallelized computer architecture which decouples Input/Output (I/O) redundancy management and I/O processing from the computational stream of an application. The autonomous nature of the system derives from the highly automated and independent manner in which I/O transactions are conducted for the application as well as from the fact that the hardware redundancy management is entirely transparent to the application.