MIL-STD-1553 Dual-Redundant Data Bus

MIL-STD-1553 is a military standard published by the United States Department of Defense that defines the mechanical, electrical, and functional characteristics of a serial data bus. It was designed for use with military avionics. It features a dual redundant balanced line physical layer, a (differential) network interface, time division multiplexing, half-duplex command/response protocol, and up to 31 remote terminals (devices). A version of MIL-STD-1553 using optical cabling in place of electrical is known as MIL-STD-1773.

MIL-STD-1553 was first published as a U.S. Air Force standard in 1973, and first was used on the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft. Other aircraft designs quickly followed, including the F-18 Hornet, AH-64 Apache, P-3C Orion and F-20 Tigershark. It now is widely used by all branches of the U.S. military and has been adopted by NATO as STANAG 3838 AVS.

MIL-STD-1553B, which superseded the earlier 1975 specification MIL-STD-1553A, was published in 1978. The basic difference between the 1553A and 1553B revisions is that in the latter, the options are defined rather than being left for the user to define as required. It was found that when the standard did not define an item, there was no coordination in its use

MIL-STD-1553 is being replaced on some newer U.S. designs by FireWire.

Updated On: 12.02.21