Former President Jimmy Carter’s plane departs Washington D.C. to head to Plains, Georgia, for burial.
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Purdue University Opening New Aviation Engine Testing Facility
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University will operate a new federally funded facility to test aircraft engines and develop alternative fuels in work that also aims to reduce the nation’s reliance on imported oil.
The National Test Facility for Fuels and Propulsion is funded with a $1.35 million grant from the U.S. Air Force and will be housed in the Niswonger Aviation Technology Building at the Purdue Airport.
“The aerospace industry now has an unprecedented interest in developing green aircraft using biofuels,” said David L. Stanley, an associate professor of aeronautical engineering technology at Purdue and principal investigator of the facility. “Testing will be conducted while fuels are being researched for development. This means input will be provided during the development phase, not after the fuel has been developed, which helps to ensure the best results possible.”
The facility, expected to open in late 2010 or early 2011, will test aerospace hardware in engines and aircraft and provide data related to fuel-sustainability and emissions goals and for economic assessments.
“This is a multidisciplinary research approach that begins with growing crops, developing fuels from those crops in the laboratory and then testing those fuels in engines,” said Denver Lopp, a professor of aviation technology and one of two co-principal investigators.
The other co-principal investigator is J. Mark Thom, a professor of aviation technology.
Work will focus on jet engines but will include some testing related to piston engines.
“The project involves faculty members in the colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Science and Technology to develop a well-rounded and capable research team for fuels research, with particular focus on aviation and aerospace,” Lopp said. “Purdue is strong in each of these areas, and having an airport also enhances these strengths.”
The researchers will work with the Air Force, industry and government agencies to develop the fuels.
“Roughly 17 billion gallons of turbine fuel are burned annually in the United States, and clearly a portion of this could be saved by blending alternative fuels,” Stanley said. “The U.S. Air Force intends to be able to operate its fleet on blends of these fuels.”
The work will tackle four major bottlenecks to aerospace progress: access to hardware testing; development of control logic and systems permitting flex-fuel operation and realization of improved efficiencies; sustainability of biofuels related to crop productivity, as well as bio and synthetic fuels’ ability to meet both near- and long-term aerospace requirements; and regulatory compliance.
“The overall goal is to update and maintain a multifaceted national testing facility with dedicated administration to support development and testing of alternative energy sources for aerospace equipment,” Lopp said. “This facility will address all energy sources and will not be an advocate of any particular fuel.”
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: David Stanley, 765-494-6266, stanledl@purdue.edu
Denver Lopp, 765-494-6387, denver@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: ( 765 ) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Altera’s DO-254/ED-80 Certifiable Nios II Processor Leveraged in Thales Safety-Critical Avionics System Certified by EASA
Industry’s First DO-254/ED-80 Certifiable Soft Core Processor Saves Thales Nearly Two Years in Development Time
SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 20, 2010 — Altera Corporation today announced the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certified a safety-critical avionics system that includes a DO-254/ED-80-certifiable version of Altera’s Nios® II embedded processor. Thales Avionics implemented a safety-critical version of the Nios II embedded processor in an Altera® HardCopy® ASIC for use in its family of integrated electronic standby instruments rather than developing a custom ASIC solution. Leveraging Altera’s DO-254/ED-80-certifiable processor allowed Thales to significantly reduce overall system development time when developing their family of integrated electronic standby instruments.
“When we began defining our integrated electronic standby instrument family, we determined it would be too costly and time consuming to develop a custom ASIC that meets the RTCA DO-254/Eurocae ED-80 objectives,” said Jerome Papineau, product manager at Thales Avionics. “The integration of a safety-critical Nios II embedded processor with a HardCopy ASIC saved nearly two years off our development while also saving considerable costs. The processor provides us with a compelling solution that meets our performance and system requirements while allowing us to manage system obsolescence. With its RTCA DO-254/Eurocae ED-80 level-B compliance determination, the Nios II embedded processor can be integrated into our system with confidence.”
Altera’s HardCopy ASICs offer customers a low-cost, low-risk and low-power migration path to take their FPGA prototype designs to volume production. The use of HardCopy ASICs provides Thales with improved single-event upset (SEU) immunity while also giving Thales pin-to-pin, functional and timing compatibility with the FPGA prototype design.
The development of a safety-critical version of Altera’s Nios II soft-core processor is the result of the close partnership and cooperation between Thales, HCELL Engineering and Altera, which dates back to 2006. The RTCA DO-254/Eurocae ED-80 compliance package of the Nios II embedded processor provides avionics equipment manufacturers a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) microprocessor that can be quickly and easily implemented in safety-critical avionics applications. Leveraging the Nios II embedded processor in these systems helps manufacturers comply with safety standards while dramatically lowering development time and costs and eliminating the threat of processor obsolescence.
“Today’s announcement significantly reduces the risk barrier for customers wanting to implement a soft-core processor into their safety-critical avionics system,” said Amr El-Ashmawi, senior marketing manager in Altera’s military business unit. “Having the EASA certify Thales’s integrated electronic standby instruments allow us to clearly demonstrate the significant reduction in cost, development time and risk that Altera’s DO-254-certifiable Nios II processor provides.”
About the Safety-Critical Version of Nios II Processor
Altera’s Nios II embedded processor is a configurable, 32-bit FPGA-based soft microprocessor used in a wide variety of applications and end markets, including military, aerospace and avionics. The safety-critical version of the processor core includes complete RTCA DO-254/Eurocae ED-80 compliance, with source code and documentation such as a plan for hardware aspects of certification (PHAC), a hardware design document (HDD) and a hardware accomplishment summary (HAS). Airborne electronic hardware designers complying with the DO-254 standard can leverage the Nios II soft processor core while minimizing obsolescence in systems that typically have long life cycles. Nios II embedded processors can be implemented within Altera’s portfolio of Cyclone® series and Stratix® series FPGAs and HardCopy series ASICs. For more information about Altera’s DO-254 strategy, visit www.altera.com/end-markets/military-aerospace/do-254/mil-do-254.
About Altera
Altera® programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Find out more about Altera’s FPGA, CPLD and ASIC devices at www.altera.com. Follow Altera via Facebook, RSS and Twitter.
ALTERA, ARRIA, CYCLONE, HARDCOPY, MAX, MEGACORE, NIOS, QUARTUS and STRATIX words and logos are trademarks of Altera Corporation and registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other words and logos identified as trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective holders as described at www.altera.com/legal.