On-board aeronautical system with dynamic reconfiguration, associated method and aircraft carrying such a system

A method for reconfiguration of an on-board aeronautic system on an aircraft, the system including a plurality of heterogeneous equipment items communicating according to separate protocols or formats and configured to process commands for operation of the aircraft, at least part of the equipment items being reconfigurable, the method comprising the following steps:

• emitting, by monitoring units included in the heterogeneous equipment items, a plurality of state messages according to the same format, each of the plurality of state messages indicating a state of operation of each of the plurality of equipment items;
• receiving, at a reconfiguration management center, the plurality of state messages from the plurality of equipment items;
• determining, by the reconfiguration management center, whether each of the plurality of equipment items is functioning properly;
• emitting, by the reconfiguration management center, reconfiguration messages destined for the reconfigurable equipment items as a function of the plurality of received state messages, at least one of the reconfiguration messages instructing to allocate a second reconfigurable equipment item with the functionality of a first equipment item that is determined to be malfunctioning;
• processing, by a reconfiguration unit included in each of the reconfigurable equipment items, at least one of the reconfiguration messages from the reconfiguration management center;
• and
• reconfiguring, by the reconfiguration unit of the second reconfigurable equipment, the second reconfigurable equipment item to perform the functionality of the first equipment item via applications of the first equipment item that have been transferred to the second reconfigurable equipment item.

An aircraft comprising:

• an on-board aeronautic system including
• a plurality of heterogeneous equipment items communicating according to separate protocols or formats and configured to process commands for operation of the aircraft, at least part of the equipment items being reconfigurable;
• and
• a reconfiguration management center configured to receive state messages from the plurality of equipment items, each indicating a state of operation of each of the plurality of equipment items, to determine whether each of the plurality of equipment items is functioning properly, and to emit reconfiguration messages destined for the reconfigurable equipment items as a function of the plurality of received state messages, at least one of the reconfiguration messages instructing to allocate a second reconfigurable equipment item with the functionality of a first equipment item that is determined to be malfunctioning, wherein
• the heterogeneous equipment items include monitoring units configured to emit the state messages according to the same format,
• the reconfigurable equipment items include reconfiguration units, each of the reconfiguration units configured to process at least one of the reconfiguration messages from the reconfiguration management center, and
• the reconfiguration unit of the second reconfigurable equipment item is configured to reconfigure the second reconfigurable equipment item to perform the functionality of the first equipment item via applications of the first equipment item that have been transferred to the second reconfigurable equipment item.