Flexible Time Triggered Ethernet: A Cost Efficient COTS-Based Technology for the Development of Launcher Networks

The future development of launch vehicles provides for an increase of operational flexibility, obtained by introducing avionics based on advanced sensing devices distributed throughout the launcher. Needs for high bandwidth communications make currently used MIL-STD-1553B not sufficient anymore, since it only offers a limited bandwidth (1 Mbps) bus solution. This work proposes a new launcher network based on Commercial-off-The-Shelf (COTS) Ethernet technology, with a bandwidth increase to at least 100 Mbps and support of safety critical for the transport of Guide, Navigation and Control (GNC) messages. The temporal requirements of the GNC messages are guaranteed by formulating an optimization problem whose objective is the minimization of the used bandwidth. The results show how the proposed solution allows for a low bandwidth consumption and the respect of the GNC messages temporal requirements.