Avio23 -- Integrated Modular Avionics Teaching Platform

Avio23 is an educational IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) system that demonstrates how multiple avionics domains are hosted on ARINC 653 computing modules and interconnected over a simulated AFDX network. It is the companion project to OSAVI, which teaches how the ARINC 653 kernel itself is built.

Architecture

                    +-----------+
                    |  IOM      |
                    | (gateway) |
                    +-----+-----+
                          |
            +-----+-----+-----+-----+
            |     |           |     |
       +----+  +--+--+  +----+  +--+--+
       | L  |  |  F  |  |  A |  |  E  |
       +----+  +-----+  +----+  +-----+
      Landing   Fuel      ECS   Electrical
       Gear

5 partitions across 5 nodes, each running an a653rs-linux hypervisor instance:

Node	Domain	DAL	Applications
sim_gateway	IOM (sensor bridge)	C	Sensor Broadcast
CPIOM-L	Landing Gear	B	Extension/Retraction, Braking, Steering
CPIOM-F	Fuel	C	Fuel Quantity, Transfer Pump
CPIOM-A	Air Conditioning / ECS	D	Bleed Air, Temperature Regulation
CPIOM-E	Electrical / Energy	B	Generator Control, Load Shedding

All inter-partition communication uses ARINC 653 sampling ports with a653rs-postcard serialization.

Project Structure

Avio23/
  architecture/           SysML v2 architecture model
  configs/                Per-CPIOM hypervisor YAML configs
    gateway.yaml          IOM schedule + outbound channels
    cpm_l.yaml            Landing Gear schedule + channels
    cpm_f.yaml            Fuel schedule + channels
    cpm_a.yaml            ECS schedule + channels
    cpm_e.yaml            Electrical schedule + channels
  implementation/         Rust workspace
    ima_config.yaml       Unified 5-partition config (single-host demo)
    sim_gateway/          IOM partition (generates synthetic flight data)
    cpm_l/                Landing Gear partition
    cpm_f/                Fuel partition
    cpm_a/                ECS partition
    cpm_e/                Electrical partition
  platform/
    a653rs-linux/         ARINC 653 type-2 hypervisor for Linux (DLR)
  Dockerfile              Container build
  docker-compose.yml      Multi-node deployment

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.80+ with x86_64-unknown-linux-musl target
• Docker and Docker Compose (for multi-node deployment)
• Linux host (the a653rs-linux hypervisor uses cgroups and namespaces)

Building

Single-host (all partitions in one hypervisor)

cd implementation
cargo build --release --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl

# Add partition binaries to PATH
export PATH="$(pwd)/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release:$PATH"

# Run with the unified config
cd ../platform/a653rs-linux
RUST_LOG=info cargo run --package a653rs-linux-hypervisor --release -- \
    ../../implementation/ima_config.yaml

Multi-node (Docker Compose)

docker compose build
docker compose up

Each service runs its own hypervisor with a per-CPIOM config from configs/.

Schedule

40 ms major frame:

|  0ms        10ms  15ms  20ms  25ms  30ms       40ms  |
|  sim_gateway | L  |  F  |  A  |  E  |   idle   |

Adding a New Domain

1. Create a new crate under implementation/ (copy cpm_f/ as a template).
2. Define your data structures and ARINC 653 ports.
3. Add the partition to implementation/Cargo.toml workspace members.
4. Create a config in configs/ with the schedule slot and channels.
5. Add the partition to ima_config.yaml and docker-compose.yml.

Relationship to OSAVI

	OSAVI	Avio23
What it teaches	How to build the ARINC 653 kernel	How to design and deploy IMA applications
Platform	Bare-metal Pi Zero 2 W	Linux containers (Docker)
APEX	14 Part 4 services in Rust	a653rs library
Communication	Shared-memory ports (single board)	Memory-mapped ports (multi-node)
Standards	DO-178C, DO-297 (core software)	DO-297 (platform integration), ARP4754A

References

• ARINC 653 Parts 1--4: Application/Executive interface
• DO-297: Integrated Modular Avionics Development
• ARP4754A: Development of Civil Aircraft and Systems
• ARINC 664: Aircraft Data Network (AFDX)
• a653rs: Rust ARINC 653 library (DLR)
• a653rs-linux: Linux ARINC 653 hypervisor (DLR)

License

MIT