Electronic Applications in Flight Instruments

Electronics are widely used devices in the field of aviation and

aerospace, and one of their most prominent usages is in flight
instrumentation. There are numerous instruments onboard an
aircraft; we simply cannot cover all of them in this report. These
onboard devices range from flight navigation instruments in the
aircraft cockpit that help the crew in determining their current
location and heading; to sensors that monitor fuel, hydraulic,
electrical and propulsion systems that warn the crew in case of a
failure in any of these systems.
1. Individual Components
Before diving into the details of the aforementioned electronic
devices, we first need to discuss the individual components that are
the basic building blocks of those devices. Here is a list of the most
widely used electronic components in general:
• Resistor
• Capacitor
• Inductor
• Semiconductor Diode
• Operational Amplifier
• Transistor
• Thermocouple
• Transformer
• Relay
• Accelerometer
• Magnetometer
• Circuit breaker
While there are many more electronic elements that can be used in
flight instrumentation, these are only the very basic ones.
Almost all the components in the list above can be split into two
distinct groups: Passive and Active components.
• Passive components - operate using the power delivered in
the electronic circuit (e.g. Resistors, Diodes, Capacitors,
Inductors)

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 • Active components – while still connected of the electronic
circuit – require their own outside power source simply
because the power generally delivered in electronic circuits is
very small and not enough to operate the component without
causing a voltage drop or any other undesired effect that may
compromise the integrity of the electronic signal.

2. Building Blocks
The building blocks are small devices made up from the basic
individual components, but they are rarely used on their own. They
usually serve one of several steps and usually work as part of a
bigger electronic circuit/device.
• Filters
• Rectifiers
• Clippers
• Clampers
• Logic Gates
Filter’s main function is clearing a received signal from unwanted
noise. They operate by multiplying the signal with the desired
frequency by a gain factor as close to 1 as possible, while
multiplying the noise by a gain factor as close to 0 as possible.
Filters can be classified in two ways: Functionality and Operation.
Classification of Filters by Functionality:-
• High Pass Filters
• Low Pass Filters
• Band Pass Filters
• Band Stop Filters

Classification of Filters by Operation:-

• Passive Filters – operate on the power deliver in the circuit
• Active Filters – require an external power source to operate

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Low Pass Filters allow all signals oscillating below a certain
frequency (called cutoff frequency) to pass through the circuit while
blocking everything else.

Active Low Pass Filter Passive Low Pass Filter

High Pass Filters do the exact opposite of Low Pass Filters; they
allow all signals above a certain frequency to pass while blocking
everything else.
Active filter’s main basic component is the operational amplifier,
though they still contain passive components (Resistor, Capacitor).
Band Pass filters combine the task of both high pass and low pass
filters. They only allow signals within a certain frequency range
(called Bandwidth) pass through the circuit, any other signals with
higher or low frequencies are blocked from passing and is filtered
out.

Passive Band Pass Filter

Active Band Pass Filter

Band Stop filters do the exact opposite of Band pass filters. They
block all signals whose frequency lies inside the bandwidth while
allowing everything else to pass.

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 Band Stop Filter

Different components could be used to achieve each of these filters.

For Example, there are two types of passive low pass filters:
capacitive low pass passive filters and inductive low pass passive
filters. The same applies for High pass passive filters. As for Band
Pass and Band Stop, all three RLC components (Resistor,
Capacitor and Inductor) are needed to build these filters.
A Transformer is an electrical device that is used to increase (step-
up) or decrease (step-down) the voltage of its input. It is essentially
two coils wrapped around each other by a different number of turns.
The ratio between the two numbers of turns is called
primary:secondary voltage ratio. A transformer is needed onboard
an aircraft because the AC current is produced from the engine
turbines which turn at a really fast rate giving a voltage well into the
kilovolts and a frequency in the kilohertz, while most equipment
onboard the aircraft operate at 115V and 400Hz (smaller and lighter
power supplies required).
A Rectifier are an electronic device that converts an Alternating
Current (AC) input to a Direct Current (DC) output. While most
instruments in modern aircraft operate on AC power – because it
can easily be generated directly from the rotating engine turbines –
but there are some devices (because of their very nature) that can
operate only on Direct Current (DC). For example, LED and LCD
screens in the cockpit like the FPD (Primary Flight Display) or the
in-flight entertainment screens in the passenger’s cabin. This raises
the need for rectifiers onboard any aircraft. The main two
components in a rectifier are the semiconductor diode and the
capacitor (for smoothing the output).

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There are two main types of rectifiers: Half-wave and Full-wave
rectifiers.
Half-wave rectifiers convert only one half-cycle of the alternating
current.

Operation of Half-wave rectifier

Full-wave rectifiers convert the entire AC waveform (both in positive

and negative half-cycle), and is more effective than the half-wave
rectifier, hence its usage in aviation.

Operation of Full-wave rectifier

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3. Aircraft Instruments
The building blocks discussed in the previous section are only tools
that constitute part of the instrument devices that help fly an aircraft.
These instruments provide many critical functions to the aircraft
systems. For example, help the crew determine their location and
alert them if an engine fails, among many others.
In this report, only the two basic instrument groups will be covered:
Flight Navigation Instruments and Systems Monitoring Instruments.
3.1 Flight Navigation Instruments
Here is a list of select navigation instruments that contain electronic
components:
• Altimeter - measures the height of the aircraft above sea level.
• Airspeed indicator - measures the relative speed of the
aircraft in relation to the surround air.
• Vertical speed indicator – measures rate of change of altitude.
• Attitude indicator - measures the longitudinal pitch angle of
the aircraft from the horizon.
• Heading Indicator – measures the bearing/heading of the
aircraft in relation to magnetic north.
• Turn indicator – measures the banking angle of the aircraft.
• Very-High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR) – uses a
network of ground transmitters to triangulate relative position
of aircraft.
• Non Directional Radio Beacon (NDB) – similar to VOR but
uses long-range transmitters at pre-known locations.
• Distance Measuring equipment (DME) – measures aircraft
height from ground.

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Figure 1 – (from right to left); Top: Altitude Indicator, Vertical Speed Indicator, and Airspeed Indicator.
Bottom: Attitude Indicator, Heading Indicator and Turn Indicator.

The instruments in the previous list can be split into three distinct
groups; Pitot-static systems, Gyroscopic Systems and Radio
navigation systems.
Pitot-static systems make use of the dynamic pressure reading
from the Pitot-static tube, though unlike classic analogue flight
instruments; modern electronic pitot-static tubes outputs its reading
as an electric signal and passes it through several electronic devices
- each with a specific transfer function – to calculate a certain
parameter.
Gyroscopic systems use an entirely different method to calculate
their desired parameters than the pitot-static systems. They server
the same purpose as the classical gyroscope but in a totally different
manner. The exact method is very complicated to explain in this
report, but it can be explained simply as follows:
Three electromagnetic sensors are placed perpendicular to each
other along the three main axis of the aircraft (longitudinal-axis,
lateral-axis, and vertical-axis). Each sensor measures a component
of the earth’s magnetic field. Then each component is passed
separately to several electronic devices, each having its own
transfer function to calculate a specific parameter.
Radio Navigation Systems use radio waves to operate.
VOR operates using Very High Frequency (VHF) band (108.0 MHz
– 117.95 MHz). The receiver onboard the aircraft receives two
perpendicular signals from the ground beacons and uses phase
difference measurements to calculate the distance from the signal
source (beacon/transmitter).

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Unlike VOR, the Non directional Radio Beacon (NDB) operates
using LF low frequencies (30 KHz – 300 KHz) and MF medium
frequencies (300 KHz – 3 MHz). The beacon on the ground uses
and omnidirectional antenna to transmit a three-letter identification
in Morse code which is then received by the onboard receiver. The
code is then searched against the database stored in the onboard
flight computer. The database contains the codes for all NDB’s
around the world and their corresponding physical location, thus the
crew know their aircraft’s location.
The Distance measuring equipment (DME) is a radio transceiver
usually installed on the bottom part of the tail cone at the end of the
aircraft. I sends an ultra-high frequency (UHF) signal down towards
the ground and waits for its echo to bounce back. By measuring the
time the signal took to return from the ground, the height can be
calculated. This process is repeated several thousand times every
second, giving a latency in the milliseconds. DME is used during the
critical phases of flight – especially final approach and landing –
because of its significantly superior accuracy over barometric
altimeter.

3.2 Systems Monitoring Instruments

One of the main and most important applications of electronics
onboard an aircraft is monitoring the state and performance of all
the critical systems of the aircraft. These monitoring instruments
mainly consists of sensors/transducers. Here is a short list of some
critical systems they monitor:
• Engines
• Hydraulic Pumps
• Fuel Pumps
• Cabin Pressure Sensors
There are dozens of sensors inside any aircraft engine, monitoring
many parameters. A simple example would be a thermocouple at
the nozzle exit of a jet engine. It is a transducer measures the
temperature of the gases exiting the engine and converts it to an
electrical signal.

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Another example would be the strain gauge, which is also a
transducer. It is one of the most fundamental sensing elements for
many types of sensors (pressure sensors, load cells, torque
sensors…etc.). In this case, it is used to measures changes in
pressure. It has a series of foil strips that are connected to a
Wheatstone bridge. When these foils are subjected to any kind of
force (pressure, tensile, compression…etc.) their electrical
resistance changes which in turn causes a change in electric voltage
proportional to the amount of force applied. The change in
resistance takes place due to variation in length and cross sectional
area of the gauge wire.
In our case, at the nozzle exit, it measures the pressure of the gases
exiting the jet engine and converts it to and electronic signal.
Then these signals (along with many others) are passed through an
electronic circuit to estimate the instantaneous thrust being
produced by the engines.
Other usages of strain gauges is on the airframe of the aircraft to
measure the structural stresses on the ribs and beams; thus
allowing maintenance engineers to identify structural weaknesses
and take appropriate measures before any failure occurs.
The figure below shows how a strain gauge operates within a circuit.

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4. Redundancy
Safety and reliability is not taken lightly in aviation and aerospace.
Because of the critical nature of some aircraft systems (e.g.
Engines, Control Surfaces, Landing Gears…etc.), and because
sensors are prone to failure (just like any other electronic
component); there needs to be multiple sensors monitoring the
same parameter for redundancy.
In most cases, the output is not taken from a single sensor, but by
averaging the output value of multiple sensors. A notable application
of this practice is the aircraft control surfaces on modern aircraft that
have a fly-by-wire avionics suite. The flight computer takes the
average value of the two sidesticks operated by the pilot and copilot
and the output is sent electronically to the actuators that move the
control surfaces (elevator, ailerons and rudder).
As for system failure indicators, where the output is in Boolean form
(True/False or On/Off), a special logical circuit (called “Voting
Circuit”) is used to determine the output from multiple sensors.

In the case where three sensors are placed to monitor the status of
a specific system, the output will be whatever two of the three
systems agree on. The truth table below shows the behaviour of the
Voting Circuit:

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 Sensor 1 Sensor 2 Sensor 3 Output
1 1 1 1
1 1 0 1
1 0 1 1
0 1 1 1
1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0

This is to ensure that the output is always valid because the chance
of two sensors failing simultaneously is very slim.

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References

1. www.wikipedia.org
2. www.electronics-tutorials.ws
3. www.sensorland.com
4. wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Aircraft
5. www.fly-ul.com/navfreq.html
6. www.continuummechanics.org/straingauges.html
7. aviation.stackexchange.com
8. electronics.stackexchange.com
9. www.allaboutcircuits.com
10. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6387381
11. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/electronics/q02
19.shtml

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