INTRODUCTION

The Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) is a general avionic computing platform that continues to grow and mature. EFB manufacturers offer a wide variety of systems ranging from Class 1 (portable) to Class 3 (fully integrated). The functionality delivered with any given platform varies greatly.

EFBs are marketed as open software platforms, and software developers continue to add applications that deliver new functionality. In avionics, the EFB is a unique platform in that significant functionality changes occur without the need of a new hardware platform.

As the EFB Market continues to grow it has become clear that integrating applications onto EFB systems with proprietary interfaces is difficult, time consuming, and costly. The solution is to abstract the applications from the EFB platform by providing standardized interfaces.

The first step toward the goal of standardized interfaces was taken by the adoption of ARINC Specification 834. ARINC Specification 834 enables applications to receive flight phase and avionic data from any platform that supports the specification. ARINC Specification 840 takes the next step by describing the role, but not necessarily the functionality of an application manager by providing a protocol for software applications to interact with the management software.

Software applications are defined as software that provides the operator with a specific set of functionality and allows user interaction. Such software applications may be developed by a wide variety of companies depending on the needs of the customer. Since it is unlikely that all of the applications installed on an EFB will be developed by a single provider, it is the goal of this specification to ease the integration of applications created by multiple providers.