Trends in avionics switched Ethernet networks

The AFDX (Avionics Full DupleX switched Ethernet) which has been standardized as ARINC 664 is based on Ethernet technology. Using full duplex links eliminates the inherent indeterminism of vintage Ethernet due to frames collision, but it shifts in fact the problem to the switch level where various flows enter in competition when using the same output port. Thus main problem is due to the indeterminism of the switching mechanisms and a network designer must prove that no frame will be lost by the AFDX (no switch queue overflow) and must evaluate the end-to-end transfer delay through the network (guaranteed upper bound and distribution of delays) according to a given avionics applications traffic.