Plenary Speaker: Domenico Accardo

In-depth understanding of leading-edge technologies and safety requirements is requested in developing high-performance avionics solutions. The lecture will discuss the evolution of aircraft cockpit instrumentation to highlight main trends and technologies adopted. Solutions and system architectures for sensors and systems will be discussed considering several important features, such as avionics requirements, certification issues, operative constraints, and safety concerns.

The evolution of cockpit layout will be discussed starting from traditional “basic T” to current advanced configurations related to Integrated Modular Avionics. The impact of enabling technologies on the development of new functions and capabilities is discussed. In particular, the lecture will highlight the concept of complex systems realized by integrating several sub-systems, such as ADS-B, TCAS and GPWS.

The use of embedded electronic solutions will be discussed by presenting the different data bus solutions and architectures. Main issues related to hardware and software qualification process of embedded avionics systems will be examined. This is an important point to provide integration with components developed for different fields of application, such as ground and maritime transport or Internet of Things. Use of common solution will be useful to reduce costs and increase reliability due to scale testing.

Current avionics systems have a large number of data sources including sensors and systems. Proper data fusion techniques must be adopted to perform basic functions such as navigation, traffic and weather surveillance, and health monitoring. Data fusion is requested to increase accuracy, integrity and reliability. Some fundamentals solutions will be discussed including detailed examples.

The lecture will be completed by an overview of future trends in development of Avionics Systems. Autonomy is requested to improve performance and reliability of current systems. In particular, More Autonomous Aircraft and Unmanned Aircraft Systems are considered the most challenging configurations for developers. Several iconic autonomy solutions will be described to identify main features of future trends.

Domenico Accardo received the MSc degree in Aerospace Engineering with honors in the year 1997 from University of Naples “Federico II” (Italy) and the PhD degree in Aerospace Science and Technology in the year 2000 from Second University of Naples (Italy). He is Associate Professor of Avionics and ATM/ATC Systems for the MSc Course of Aerospace Engineering at University of Naples “Federico II” (Italy). He is also responsible for courses of On-Board Systems and Air Traffic Management and Control at Italian Air Force Academy. He is a member of PhD Council in Technology and Innovation Management at UNINA. His research activity deals with Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Integrated Navigation Systems, ATC/ATM, Electro-Optical Sensors for Satellite Attitude Measurement. He co-authored more than 100 papers for International Journals, International Congresses, and Textbook chapters, which collected more than 900 citations (source: Scopus Database by Elsevier) with h-index 17. He is the first author of an international patent (EP 2466568 B1) related to an original Aircraft Trajectory Prediction method. He has been Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator of several Research Projects funded by the European Union, Eurocontrol, the European Space Agency, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA), the Italian Ministry of University and Education (MIUR), and Italian aerospace enterprises, such as Finmeccanica, Carlo Gavazzi Space, and MBDA. He is AIAA senior member and IEEE member. He has been Chair of AIAA Sensor Systems and Information Fusion (SSIF) Technical Committee. He has been reviewer for several International Journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Progress in Aerospace Sciences, Aerospace Science and Technology, Acta Astronautica, Autonomous Robots, Pattern Recognition Letters and Sensors. He has been Track Session Chair and Session Chairman for several congresses organized by AIAA and IEEE, such as Infotech@Aerospace, Scitech, and Metroaerospace.