• Cabin Pressure Control System
• Certifiable Tool
• DO-178
• Model-Based Design

Airbus is pursuing innovation in its way of designing systems, by both incorporating state-of-the-art technology in the development processes, as well as thwarting the existence of design errors in early phases.
The transition from Requirements-Based Engineering to Model-Based Engineering is relevant to this context and brings in both new opportunities and novel challenges. The advantages of this new approach revolve on its specific application, depending on the complexity of the considered system and on its suitability to be modeled.

This thesis has the aim of mirroring the workflow across the development of a tailored Cabin Pressure Control System, by means of a scaled-down prototype, using Model-Based Design methods, in accordance to aerospace software development recommended practices DO-178C. Prototyping is hence employed as a mean of weighing the workload arising from this technique, when applied to this specific system and in combination with certifiable tools.

The activities performed in this thesis take into account several operative scenarios and concern the complete system design processes. These begin in the requirements specification stage, lead on towards the model development, up to the validation and verification activities. Emphasis is made on the analysis of simulations results, referring to various flight profiles, in order to characterize the dynamic behavior of the system, deliver a preliminary stability analysis and a first-step closed-loop control laws design. Finally, an overview is given on the encountered difficulties, related to the used approach and technologies.