This open architecture approach may be one of the key highlights of the system, Kiefer said, as it enables savings on the cost of change down the road.

Diagram showing where the common core system (CCS) is connected throughout the 787 aircraft. Most of what is noted in the fuselage are the 21 or so remote data concentrators that GE provides and are advanced sensors to the CCS. Source: GE Aviation. Click to enlarge.

The Dreamliner CCS uses 21 remote data concentrators (RDCs) to consolidate inputs from the aircraft’s systems and sensors—for example, from the sensors in the landing gears, out on the wings, the vertical stabilizer—and distribute it via the Rockwell Collins avionics full duplex switched Ethernet network. (This is also the first time RDCs have been used throughout the aircraft, Kiefer said.)

GE developed the common core system on the Wind River VxWorks 653 partitioned operating environment. VxWorks is a real-time operating system (RTOS) used in more than 1 billion real-time systems across the globe, from small consumer products to commercial airliners. Wind River is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, but the GE CCS uses a Freescale platform.

The CCS is designed, manufactured and tested at GE’s US locations in Washington and Michigan and at its Cheltenham UK facility.

We are ecstatic about first delivery on the airplane. It took seven years developing the common core system and getting through flight testing. Getting into production for us is a great opportunity.

This is the first time on commercial air transport, where there is effectively a [CCS] computing platform with software from many different vendors. This is based on a Freescale [processor] platform, Wind River does part of the operating system. That’s one of the unique attribute of the system, an open architecture standard.

Part of it is the partitioned operating system—you can go in and test the portions that change. That’s a major opportunity.

—George Kiefer

The CCS unit is about 2.5 to 3 feet across, about 15 inches deep, and used forced air cooling. Each cabinet has dual power supplies and redundant processors, and there are two cabinets on the airplane. Everything is redundant Kiefer said, including the network.

There are similar systems on some military aircraft, Kiefer noted, and there is similar technology on the C919 (the large aircraft developed by Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China). GE is already redeploying portions of the Dreamliner CCS—which is a scalable system—within the business jet market.