DO-254: An Avionics Standard That Requires Some Thought
DO-254 provides guidance for the development of airborne electronic hardware.
Published by RTCA, DO-254 was formally recognized by the FAA in 2005 via AC20-152 as a means of compliance for the design assurance of electronic hardware in airborne systems. The guidance in this document is applicable, but not limited, to electronic hardware, including:
- Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components
- Circuit board assemblies (CBA)
- Line replaceable units (quickly replaceable components)
- Custom micro-coded components
- Integrated technology components
Simply stated, DO-254 is a requirements-driven process-oriented safety standard used on commercial electronics that go into aircraft. Conceptually speaking, this standard applies to all electronics in anything that flies or could crash and pose a hazard to the public.
DO-254 training is a good idea because, in truth, understanding the DO-254 specification and how to achieve DO-254 approval is, unfortunately, not as simple as downloading and thoroughly reading the document.
The DO-254 specification itself is only part of the story. There are additional supplemental papers that clarify, restrict and limit how the DO-254 specification is applied. In addition, there are follow-on papers created by other bodies such as the international Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) and the European Aviation Safety Association (EASA), as well as additional regulations set by air framers such as Airbus and Boeing.
There are also a variety of commonly accepted industry practices expected by certification officials. A minimal understanding of these documents and their organization is important, as these papers limit the scope, and clarify details necessary to successfully complete a DO-254 project.
According to DO-254 experts, although it’s not explicitly detailed in the DO-254 specification, certification officials expect you to design your system to adequately handle a variety of nefarious conditions.
These include things like single event upsets on state machines, memory corruption protection (such as ECCs), block or subsystem redundancy when deemed necessary to achieve a sufficiently low failure rate, electrical isolation of different DAL circuits so a lower DAL does not disrupt a higher DAL circuit, and many other aspects required by high-reliability environments.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers DO-254 Training | Design Assurance of Airborne Electronic Hardware, a 2-day course that covers principals, objectives and guidance for design assurance of airborne electronic hardware based on RTCA DO-254/Eurocae ED-80 standards.
Do-254 Training covers all aspects of airborne electronic hardware from conception through initial certification and subsequent post certification product improvements to ensure continued airworthiness.
For more information, questions, comments, contact us.