Flight Attendance Panel

A robust single-board computer is the heart of this flight attendant panel which controls the electrical signals from the plane and serves as a Human-Machine Interface for the crew.

It is based on a PowerPC® MPC823e which already includes the TFT/LCD display and CAN bus functions in the microcontroller. The MPC823e is a versatile, one-chip integrated microprocessor and peripheral combination that excels in low-power portable image capture and personal communication products.

The board is equipped with Flash, DRAM and a CompactFlash® slot to store the data for announcements and music. Communication is realized with an RS232 and an audio interface and on the fieldbus level two ARINC-429 and two CAN bus interfaces are provided. Two mezzanine slots allow extension by further aerospace-specific features like transmission of control, status and audio data from the CPU board to a redundant CAN bus system.

The single-board computer is qualified according to RTCA DO-160D for mission-critical airborne equipment.