ARINC 840A PDF

INTRODUCTION

The Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) is a general-purpose avionic computing platform that continues to grow and mature. EFB suppliers offer a wide variety of systems ranging from Portable Electronic Device (PED) to fully integrated avionics installed systems. The functionality delivered with any given platform varies greatly.

Over the last several years, there has been significant change in the EFB ecosystem. Tablet devices are now widely accepted by airlines and their widespread adoption is driving the need for standards to support industry.

EFBs are marketed as open software platforms, and software developers continue to develop applications that deliver new and innovative functionality. The EFBs have evolved at the pace of consumer electronics technology which is unusual for avionics systems.

As the EFB market continues to grow, it has become clear that integrating applications onto EFB systems with proprietary interfaces is difficult, time consuming, and costly. The solution is to abstract the applications from the EFB platform by providing standardized interfaces. It is also now a fact that airline dependence on the EFB will increase, and as such, the EFB needs to efficiently support the end user whether it is a pilot, crew member, or maintenance professional.

The first step toward the goal of standardized interfaces was taken by the adoption of ARINC Specification 834: Aircraft Data Interface Function (ADIF), which enables applications to receive flight phase and avionic data from any platform that supports the specification. ARINC Specifications 840: Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) Application Control Interface (ACI) Standard took the next step by describing the role, but not necessarily the functionality of an application manager by providing a protocol for software applications to interact with the management software. This document, ARINC Specification 840A, applies the same concept to tablet devices.

Software applications may be developed by a wide variety of companies depending on the needs of the customer or to innovate a product. Since it is unlikely that all applications installed on an EFB will be developed by a single provider, it is the goal of this specification to ease the integration of applications created by multiple suppliers.

As more and more applications are deployed, it has become evident that having those applications should work with in a system to enable efficient use of the EFB.