Advanced Aircraft Electric System & Equipment Testing

The electrification of an aircraft is driven by the vision of making airplanes for more efficient, less costly to operate, and more environmentally friendly in terms of exhaust gas and noise emissions. In order to transform today's conventional aircraft to the electric plane, hydraulic and pneumatic actuators and systems will gradually be replaced by electric actuators and systems.

The main technological challenges to achieve these are to reduce the weight and increase the efficiency, power density and reliability of the components of the aircraft electric system, i.e. of the electric generators, batteries, power controllers and motors. Testing the energy conversion efficiency of these components requires data acquisition systems (DAQ) that are both able to measure aggregate input and output power with high accuracy and reliability and deliver the underlying raw data necessary to understand and improve energy efficiency in the R&D process.

As a consequence of electrification, it will become more challenging to ensure a stable operation of the aircraft electric system. Both, individual components as well as the entire aircraft electric grid will need to be tested more extensively for power quality compliance. DAQ systems for such tests need to be able to both continuously record the entire flight profile and switch to higher sample rates to capture singular disturbances. They should be able to perform both harmonic analysis and power measurements with the same instrument.

Benefits of the HBM solution

One universal DAQ system for electrical, mechanical and efficiency testing of all components of the aircraft electric system, including generators, batteries, fuel cells, power controllers, circuit breakers, distribution networks, frequency inverters and motors.

HBM offers the following benefits for the stability testing and certification of aircraft electric distribution networks and their components:

Scalable DAQ system with 4 to 10,000 channels for use from component testing up to full electrical network certification
Triggered or continuous data acquisition, even simultaneously, up to full flight profile duration
Isolated direct voltage inputs from ±10 mV to ±1,000 V
Sensor database for current clamps and CTs for easy and error free channel setup
Isolated binary status inputs
CANbus and temperature channels
Real time RMS, power and efficiency calculation

HBM offers the following benefits for the efficiency testing and optimization of APU, Ram Air Turbine (RAT), starter generator, cabin compressors, electric hydraulic pumps, nitrogen generation, RAM fans, power panels, batteries, electric actuators, and fuel cells:

One integral DAQ system for all data - including currents, voltages, torque and rotational speed
Continuous storage of all raw data for real-time or post-process verification and analysis of the measured active, apparent and reactive power
Real-time integration into test stands via EtherCAT
Modular and scalable DAQ system with 6 up to 42 channels in a single mainframe
Isolated direct voltage inputs from ±10 mV to ±1,000 V
Sensor database for current clamps and CTs for easy and error free channel setup

Find out more about eDrive

Integrated Solution for Processing Electrical Measurement Quantities

The Genesis HighSpeed transient recorder and data acquisition system and the corresponding Perception software are the ideal tools for testing the aircraft electric system.

Transient recorder and data acquisition system (GEN7tA)

The standard 1 Gbit Ethernet interface of the rack mountable GEN7tA supports streaming of recorded data directly to the PC at 100 MByte/s
Optional 1 Gbit optical Ethernet allows for isolated control of the mainframe and for cable lengths up to 10 km (6.2 mi) while maintaining full streaming performance
Higher streaming rates of 400 MB/s are possible with the 10 Gbit electrical or optical Ethernet option

Isolated 1 kV 2 MS/s input card with enhanced math (GN610B)

The isolated balanced differential inputs of the input card allow direct connection to any voltage up to 600 V RMS on both inputs of each channel
The signal conditioner provides voltage inputs from ± 10 mV to ± 1000 V combining low and high voltage input ranges all in one card

QuantumX MX1609KB/TB thermocouple amplifier

MX1609KB for K and MX1609TB for T thermocouples offer reliable temperature measurement for up to 16 channels per amplifier
They can be synchronized with the transient recorder and data acquisition system (GEN7tA) by PTPv2 (Precision Time Protocol)

QuantumX MX471B CANbus module

MX471B offers 4 channels and reads CAN, CCP or xCP-on-CAN messages
It can be synchronized with the transient recorder and data acquisition system (GEN7tA) by PTPv2 (Precision Time Protocol)

230 V RMS isolated digital event adapter (G072)

The isolated digital event adapter provides an isolation barrier for up to 32 digital event input channels
Four event output channels are available if the adapter is connected to the digital event/timer/counter connector of GEN DAQ mainframes

Dual-Mode Recording: continuous data acquisition at lower sample rates and parallel unlimited or limited Sweep recording at higher sample rates

Harmonic Analysis: Determination of fundamental frequency, harmonics spectrum and THD calculation

Dual mode recording and harmonic analysis

Continuous data acquisition at lower sample rates and parallel unlimited or limited sweep recording at higher sample rates
Determination of fundamental frequency, harmonics spectrum and THD calculation

Trigger based on real-time true rms calculation: Using real-time rms calculations (top) for detected cycles (middle) as source signals for triggers (bottom)

Trigger based calculation

Trigger based on real-time true rms calculation: Using real-time rms calculations (top) for detected cycles (middle) as source signals for triggers (bottom)

Sensor database

Sensor database for quick configuration of all channels including current clamps and transformers by simple drag-and-drop of sensors from the database onto the channels