IESF 2013: Electrical Distribution Systems

TECHNICAL SESSION Aircraft and military systems are arguably the most complex software intensive products today. But the distributed nature of computing on board these platforms means nothing works without the electrical system that interconnects the components. This presentation explores the latest technology for electrical design, and how integrations with requirements, functional design, verification & project management tools are contributing to a true systems engineering approach to platform development. As the challenges and technical solutions are described, so the value of this innovative and compelling paradigm becomes clear.

TECHNICAL SESSION The modern flight simulator consists of a generic building block mated to an aircraft-specific front-end. With the rising complexity and need to manage configurations/change requests across projects, our legacy toolset began to struggle. During this presentation I’ll explain the functional criteria we needed to fulfill whilst evaluating Capital against other vendors, and how in the space of just over two years we have successfully moved six projects into the Capital design environment and the benefits this has brought us.

TECHNICAL SESSION Manufacturing engineers apply their skills and knowledge to huge volumes of data to accomplish complex tasks. This session shows how Capital’s capability extends into manufacturing process planning & optimization, seamlessly leveraging the harness design data. Capital Harness TVM, a brand new tool, will be introduced. It allows multiple end-to-end factory processes to be modeled. These are combined with design data to quickly & accurately synthesize harness manufacturing processes, right down to task level. This provides rich information and data for several purposes including DFM validation, harness costing, work instruction creation and feeding production systems.

TECHNICAL SESSION No longer can decisions regarding the system interconnect be left until late in the design process. The ever-increasing electrical content of platforms and regulatory mandates like EWIS are compelling companies to look for ways to evaluate harnessing architecture alternatives very early in the design process. Being able to perform weight, electrical verification, and other types of studies early provide a means to evaluate design alternatives quickly while cost-of-change is low. This breakout investigates capabilities that provide designers a way of ensuring they are developing the electrical distribution system that best meets design objectives.

TECHNICAL SESSION Mentor Graphics Capital is an extremely powerful set of electrical design tools. The road from initial purchase to production usage can take several paths. Working with partners who have the experience of leading others to early success with Capital to create a plan that leads to successful use of the Capital tools, and following that plan, are essential to achieving the fastest return on investment and quickest proactive use of the Capital tools. This session will contrast several Capital customers who have chosen different paths to prepare for the use of Capital tools in production aerospace design environments.