As the integrity of flight deck and auto flight platforms for aircraft increases, e.g. 10 to the minus 10, the requirement to synchronize dissimilar processors becomes necessary. Also, it may be advantageous to conserve space and minimize equipment to utilize dissimilar processors to reduce the number of redundant processors conventionally being used. This may be reflected in both in the number of Line Replaceable Units (LRU's) utilized and the number of processors used. In fly-by-wire applications, it is important to maintain the ability to provide the comparison of the information for input/output data flow with the correct bit-by-bit review and thereby determine the integrity of the processing platform and the application requirements for the aircraft control. In other situations the use of dissimilar processors may also prove to be advantageous as compared with conventional systems. For example, it may be advantageous to use dissimilar processors in achieving display requirements for the Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System (EICAS) control of circuit breakers. In order to implement dissimilar processor synchronization, it may be necessary to devise software and implement software/hardware combinations which enable such synchronization.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods of providing software or software/hardware combinations which effectuate synchronization of dissimilar processors and making comparisons of the output of those dissimilar processors to provide integrity monitoring and integrity control.
The techniques herein below extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned needs.