Introduction of ACARS Systems
The Engineering Department at Aeronautical Radio, Inc (ARINC), in an effort to reduce crew workload and improve data integrity, introduced the ACARS system in July 1978. The first day operations saw about 4000 transactions. A few experimental ACARS systems were introduced earlier but ACARS did not start to get any widespread use by the major airlines until the 1980s.
The original ARINC development team was headed by Crawford Lane and included Betty Peck, a programmer, and Ralf Emory, an engineer. The terrestrial central site, a pair of Honeywell Level 6 minicomputers, (AFEPS) software was developed by subcontractor, Eno Compton of ECOM, Inc.
Although the term ACARS is often taken into context as the datalink avionics line-replaceable unit installed on the aircraft, the term actually refers to a complete air and ground system. The original meaning was Arinc Communications Addressing and Reporting System. Later, the meaning was changed to Airline Communications, Addressing and Reporting System.
On the aircraft, the ACARS system was made up of an avionics computer called an ACARS Management Unit (MU) and a Control Display Unit (CDU). The MU was designed to send and receive digital messages from the ground using existing VHF radios.
On the ground, the ACARS system was made up of a network of radio transceivers, managed by a central site computer called AFEPS (Arinc Front End Processor System), which would receive (or transmit) the datalink messages, as well as route them to various airlines on the network.
The initial ACARS systems were designed to ARINC Characteristic 597. This was later upgraded in the late 1980s by the publication of ARINC Characteristic 724. ARINC 724 is intended for aircraft installed with avionics supporting digital data bus interfaces. ARINC 724 was updated to the current standard ARINC Characteristic 724B, which is the predominate standard for all digital aircraft. With the introduction of ARINC 724B, the ACARS MUs were also coupled with industry standard protocols for operation with flight management system MCDUs (ARINC 739), and printers (ARINC 740 and ARINC 744). The ACARS MU has been since expanded to server broader needs using a Communications Management Unit (CM) defined by ARINC Characteristic 758. Today new aircraft designs integrate CM functions in Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA). ARINC Standards are prepared by the Airlines Electronic Engineering Committee (AEEC).
Read more about this topic: Aircraft Communications Addressing And Reporting System, History of ACARS
Famous quotes containing the words introduction and/or systems:
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)