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Development of any safety critical software applications such as in the aerospace industry needs to comply to specific standards (DO-178) to meet airworthiness requirements. This standard is applicable to all airborne software. As such, the software development needs to perform certain verification activities to comply to the standard objectives. One of the verification activities is source code inspection or review to check that the implementation meets the specification captured in the form of requirements and other aspects such as coding style guidelines and documentation, such as, indentation used in code, sufficient comments or notes in the code files etc. Generally, this activity is carried out manually, supplemented by tools which are deployed to check errors and standards in the code by means of static analysis and practices such as test-driven development (TDD), wherein, the testing and analysis is done prior to the reviews.

Continuous improvements and innovations towards sustainability in the aviation industry has brought interest in electrified aviation. Electric aircrafts have short missions in which the temporal variability of thermal loads are high. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have emerged as prominent power source candidate for electric aircrafts and Urban Air Mobility (UAM). UAMs and Electric aircrafts have large battery packs with battery capacity ranging in hundreds or thousands of kWh. If the battery is exposed to temperatures outside the optimum range, the life and the performance of the battery reduces drastically. Hence, it is crucial to have a Thermal Management System (TMS) which would reduce the heat load on battery in addition to cabin, and machinery thermal loads. Thermal management can be done through active or passive cooling. Adding a passive cooling system like Phase Change Material (PCM) to the TMS reduces the design maximum thermal loads.

This paper reviews the characteristics of a power line network as data communication medium and studies the challenges encountered when communicating over power wiring. This technology review has been done as part of feasibility study for using aircraft power-lines for data communication. Power-Line Communication is a term which describes the use of existing electrical lines to provide the medium for a high speed communications network. Power Line Communications is achieved by superimposing the voice or data signals onto the line carrier signal using an appropriate communication technology. Power Line Communications represent a potential simplicity for communications among different devices, because it does not need additional wires for connecting devices network together. Power line cables have been used as a communication medium for many years. However, because power line cables are not designed for communication, they pose major challenges for a modem designer.

Power Line Communication (PLC) is considered one of emerging technologies for the Next Generation Aircraft. Power lines can be used as an internal data exchange media within aircraft subsystems, such as the Electric Power Distribution System (EPDS). PLC is a term which describes the use of existing electrical power lines to provide the medium for a high data speed networks to replace extra cables, thereby reducing the installation cost and net weight in aircraft wiring. This paper reviews different multiple access techniques and advantages/disadvantages of each technique using power line networks as a data communication medium. Power line channels include various types of noise and interference hence there are major challenges when communicating over power lines. A designer must consider the limitations in the power line communication channels such as propagation factor, impedance mismatch, noise and electromagnetic compatibility.