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 to use from component testing up to full electrical network certification
  • Meets the bandwidth, sample rate and cycle analysis requirements of ISO1540, MIL-STD-704F and ISO 12384
  • Triggered or continuous data acquisition, even simultaneously, up to full flight profile duration
  • Isolated direct voltage inputs from ±10 mV to ±1,500 V and up to ±5 kV with high accuracy voltage probes
  • Own series of high bandwidth, high accuracy Current Transducer (Zero-Flux type)
  • Sensor database for voltage probes, current clamps and CTs for easy and error free channel setup
  • Isolated binary status inputs
  • CANbus and temperature channels
  • GPS, PTP and IRIG time synchronization
  • Real time RMS, power and efficiency calculation
  • Harmonic Analysis option

HBM offers the following benefits for testing the complete electrical system during flight profile simulation, or individually for 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, temperatures, vibration, torque, rotational speed and bus signals
  • 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 or Software-API
  • Modular and scalable DAQ system with 6 up to 51 power channels in a single mainframe, with unlimited multi-mainframe capabilities

Find out more about eDrive

Starter generator
Inverter
Battery

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 (GEN17tA)

  • The standard 1 GBit Ethernet interface of the rack mountable GEN17tA 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 as well as the build in TeraByte SSD RAID array
  • Multiple mainframes allow virtually unlimited streaming rates to distributed SSD RAID arrays

Isolated 1 kV 2 MS/s voltage input card GN610B

  • The isolated balanced differential inputs of the voltage 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
  • Can also be used as power card using external burden resistors or current clamps for current input
  • Differential high accuracy probe available extending the input range to ± 5.000 V

Isolated 1.5 kV 2 MS/s power input card GN310B

  • Dedicated power input card (add link to page 9261) with both voltage and current inputs

  • Direct voltage inputs up to ± 1500 V with highest overvoltage protection (1000 V CAT IV)
  • Current inputs with internal burdens for direct CT connection, or switchable to voltage input for current clamp or Rogowski coil usage.
  • Real-Time calculation of RMS, P, S, Q, power factor, THD and much more

High accuracy, high bandwidth zero-flux current transducers

  • Full range of CTs from 50 A up to 5000 A
  • High bandwidth up to 1 MHz
  • Complete solution including low noise power supply and all connection cables

High Voltage Probe ± 5.000 V

  • Passive differential probe with high accuracy of 0.1%
  • Usable bandwidth 100 kHz @ -0.5 dB
  • Certified safety concept according to IEC61010-031 for uncompromised user safety
  • Perfectly matched to GN610 B voltage card and GN310B power card
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