On board A350 XWB

www.thalesgroup.com

 

2

Thales, an Airbus strong partner onboard A350 XWB

Relation between Airbus and Thales reaches a new step with the new A350 XWB program. Thales is selected in 2008to design and deliver avionics solutions or this new long range aircrat: interactive control and display system, inte-grated modular avionics (IMA), air data and inertial reerence unit, as well as electrical power conversion.

Besides, Thales contributes to doors and slides management system and Slats and Flaps control computer developedand delivered to Airbus by Diehl Aerospace.

On top o that, Thales is selected or the cabin with IFE and connectivity systems.

This program is managed in Toulouse or avionics perimeter and involves all other French Thales Avionics entities: Meu-don, Châtellerault, Bordeaux/Le Haillan, Vendôme and Valence, with hundreds o people dedicated to this program.Thales technologies onboard

Main events

January 2008 : Thales is selected by Airbus on a large avionics shipset and or electrical power conversion.

End 2009 : Thales starts to deliver the rst IMA elements to Airbus and partners in charge o developing sotwareunctions.

 April 2010 : Thales IFE is selected or the cabin.

2012 :• February: A350 XWB engine fies or the 1st time on A380 fying test bed; Thales is onboard with ew equipmentsincluding the ADIRU.• August 2nd: Cockpit power-on.• 2nd hal 2012: Thales delivers pieces o equipment ready or rst fight.

Since 2009 up to May 2013 : 1529 pieces o equipment delivered to Airbus.

June 2013 : A350 XWB rst fight.

 

3

Thales technologies on board

Displays and interactivity  With the advent o the A380 and now the A350 XWB, themain change in the cockpit has been the shit to largedisplay screens. Thales ts A380 cockpits with ten mainscreens, eight o which deal with avionics-related inorma-tion, the remaining two being On-board Inormation Sys-tem (OIS) displays, covering outside and open inormationrelating to weather, trac, etc.

The A350 XWB will eature ewer but larger display systemsthan the A380. Thales will be supplying six 15in (38cm)rectangular screens and the Keyboard Cursor Control Unit(KCCU) which is one o the interace with Flight Manage-ment System. The cockpit conguration has two centraldisplays mounted, one above the other and a single dis-play in ront o each pilot with an on-board inormationsystem screen adjacent to it. There are no dierences in theunctionalities between these lateral and central displaysas, unlike the A380 conguration, all the displays can beused or both types o inormation.

The A350 XWB eatures an integrated system bringing to-gether so-called “open world” and “closed world” (secureavionics) inormation, enabling the optimized manage-ment o inormation to allow the pilots to work eciently together. For instance, they can bring inormation rom thelateral screens to the central ones to allow them to worktogether on a particular piece o inormation. The advan-tage o having common screens means that the pilot canuse the KCCU to interace with the OIS.

 With the new A350 XWB, i one o the screens ails, the cock-pit displays are automatically recongured to use the lateraldisplays. The act that all six screens can be used or all inor-mation within the cockpit is an important actor or airlines, asit will help to maintain high aircrat dispatch availability levels.

The new cockpit display system achieves simplied andstreamlined interactivity with the entire system.

Overall, the A350 XWB cockpit has been designed as anatural evolution o the A380 cockpit, with the aim o en-suring continuity throughout the range. An A380 pilot willneed just minimal amounts o training to be able to trans-er to the new layout and unctions o the A350 XWB. Thiswill result in a reduction in training costs and optimized useo airline resources.

From the pilot’s standpoint, the large cockpit screens willenable optimized inormation management and impro-ved situational awareness. Furthermore, the large screenshave uture-proo product evolution characteristics and

provide the potential in the uture or new types o dis-plays or uture generations o Airbus aircrat.

Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA)Thales’s Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) solution re-presents a real-time airborne computer network system.This network consists o a number o computing modulescapable o supporting numerous applications o dieringcriticality levels. The IMA is a major technical evolution oglobal importance or airlines and operators.

Using new technologies, Thales has standardised andreduced by hal the number o CPIOMs (Core Proces-sing Inputs/Outputs Module) and CRDCs (Common Re-mote Data Concentrator) – both o which are the mainbuilding blocks o the IMA suite – meaning that the com-ponents are easier to maintain, repair and stock.

 Also, the number o unctions hosted by the CPIOMhas been increased rom 21 (A380) to 35 (A350 XWB).For instance, the “doors and slides” unction that waspreviously handled by a specic computer is now ma-naged by the standard CPIOM. On top o that, the cal-culation capacity o the CPIOM has been doubled, itsreliability increased and weight reduced.The IMA represents a substantial leap along the path tostandardization and simplication, and the whole air-crat is set to benets.

Navigation SystemThales has also implemented a new navigation system.The ADIRU (Air Data Inertial Reerence Unit) denesthe position o the plane with high precision and ac-curacy. Combined with a Flight Management Systemand OANS (Onboard Airport Navigation System), itwill enable pilots to have the highest-possible precisionguidance tools at their disposal.

These technologies will enable the airlines to use SESAR new procedures (example: 4D trajectories) as soon asthey will be available.

Head-up Display (HUD)Thales’ HUD already available on all aircrat within the Airbus Fly-By-Wire amily. A single or dual congura-tion will be available as a customer option in the A350 XWB catalogue.New HUD provides a fexible platorm or growth tosupport new eatures such as Enhanced Vision Systems(EVS) and potentially Surace Guidance System (SGS)and Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS), in addition to oe-ring unique symbology entirely consistent with Airbus’cockpit philosophy.

Press Contact

Thales, Media Relations - Civil AerospaceGiaime Porcu

Tel: +33 6 88 23 84 79giaime.porcu@thalesgroup.com