Investigation of alternatives to the MIL-STD-1553 data bus for tactical military aviation systems applications

This research attempted to find various alternatives to the current MIL-STD-1553 data bus system for military aviation applications. Comparison of systems was based on: the data capacity, reliability, and future potential, among other factors. Seven different current and future data bus systems were compared based on samplings of the aviation, computer, and communications industries. Comparison data were collected from available literature and assembled into a form which best met aircraft and project requirements. The target audience is the general engineering community however, some sections of the paper become rather detailed and would probably only be of interest to the avionics engineering community. The findings show that reliability is the major consideration for future bus designs. The findings also show that MIL-STD-1553 is still a viable system and is finding a number of new applications, however, the token passing bus, and the token passing ring are the systems this thesis recommends to best take military aviation into the next century. The ARINC-629 system also holds promise based on its good performance, and reliability.