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AVIONIC SYSTEMS

DONALD H. MIDDLETON
GENERAL EDITOR

Longman
Scientific &
Technical
Longman Scientific & Technical,
Longman Group UK Limited,
Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughout the world.
© Longman Group UK Limited 1989
All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of
the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 33-34 Alfred Place, London,
WCIE 7DP.
First published 1989

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Avionic systems.
1. Aircraft. Electronic equipment
I. Middleton, Don, 192/-
629.135'5

ISBN 0O-582-01881-1

Set in Linotron 202 93/12 pt Ehrhardt Roman

Produced by Longman Singapore Publishers (Pte) Ltd.

Printed in Singapore
CONTENTS

Preface
Glossary of acronyms used in text
Glossary

1 The Evolution of Avionics

M. W. Wilson
Early development of avionics
Origins of radar
Transition from thermionic valves to solid state

2 System Design Considerations

S.7.K. Walker
The ethos of civil aircraft safety
ARINC specifications
Redundancy
Reliability
Built-in test equipment (BITE)
Automatic test equipment (ATE)

3 Digital Technology »
I. Moir a
Microprocessors
Memory devices
Data buses —_ 7
Software development methodologies _

ar
Contents

5 Flight Control Systems

I. Moir

Principles of flight control

Essential elements of control
Civil systems
UK military developments
Advanced developments

Aircraft Management Systems

I, Moir
Engine and propulsion control
Flight performance management
Utilities management systems
EAP systems
Health and usage monitoring (HUM)
Stores management systems

Navigation Systems
S. J. K. Walker
Radio wave propagation
Navigation equipment
Air traffic control
Navigation displays
Flight management systems
Point source aids
Hyperbolic and grid systems
Doppler navigation
Self-contained systems
Air data acquisition and air data computers
Attitude heading reference system (AHRS)
Laser technology

Communications Systems
T: T: Brown
Design considerations
Frequency bands
HF transmission
UHF/VHF transmission
Real time channel evaluation
Aircraft antennas
Receivers
Frequency synthesis
Voice systems
Transmitter modulation
Information theory applications
Data links
Joint tactical information distribution system (JTIDS)
Satellite communications
Public correspondence
 Contents

9 Airborne Radar 202

J. A. C. Kinnear
Propagation 203
Functional elements of a radar 205
The antenna 209
The transmitter 215
Types of radar 216
Pulse Doppler 218
Civil aviation applications Zug
Military applications Line

10 Electronic Warfare — an Overview 228

B. R. Drake
The EW spectrum 230
Electronic support measures 232
Electronic countermeasures 239
Electro-optics and infra-red 242
The future 245

11 Future trends and developments 247

G. Warwick
Avionic integration : 247
Cockpit integration 249
Sensor integration pie)
Control integration : 254
, Database integration 255
| Knowledge integration 256

Index 258
Index of names 262
Index of aircraft
Index of research aircraft , : e:
. Index ofgas turbines and propulsion units bien 5
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PREFACE

It is beyond doubt that the origins of what we now know as avionics was a major
factor in preserving the world from Nazi domination in the 1940s and it should
not be forgotten that the first manifestations of its capability were demonstrated
in February 1935 when Dr Watson Watt’s team carried out the famous experiment
at the BBC’s Daventry transmitter and received a signal reflected back from a
Heyford bomber approaching Daventry.
The five decades since this memorable event have seen the enterprise and bril-
liance of scientists and engineers at research centres and manufacturers’ works
combine with computer technology to produce systems of almost unbelievable capa-
bility and reliability.
This book is intended to fill a gap in the aviation technical bookshelf by
discussing the present state of the art in a manner intelligible to both the student
and the technician.
As General Editor it has been my privilege and pleasure to work with the
authors of each chapter — each a leading practitioner in his particular subject. To
them all I express my appreciation of their enthusiasm and cooperation.
To all the companies named in the text I owe a debt of gratitude for their
cooperation, for the provision of photographs and information and, where appro-
priate, for their courtesy in permitting their engineers to contribute to this book.
Valuable advice has been given by Mr Mike Hirst, Mr Andy Hofton, Mr Harry
Ratcliffe, Mr David Yeomans and Wing Commander Charles McClure of the
College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, Mr A. H. Fox of Southall College, Mr Peter
Drake of the CSE Oxford Air Training School, Wing Commander G. S. Bowden
at Brunel College, Professor G.C. Bloodworth and Dr R.J. Patton of the
University of York, Dr Bernstein and Mr David Sweeting of Queen Mary College,
University of London. Mr John Burrows, Assistant Engineering Training Super-
intendent of British Airways and members of his staff were also extremely helpful.
My thanks for their assistance are also due to Mr John Saull, Director and
Chief Surveyor of the Civil Aviation Authority and Mr D. Hawkes. From RAE
Bedford, Mr R. G. White offered valuable advice as did Dr John Clarke at the
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern.

D. H. Middleton
General Editor
 GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS USED
IN TEXT

automatic attitude director BFO beat frequency oscillator

automatic communications and BIFU bus interface unit
recording system BITE built-in test equipment
automatic configuration control BLEU Blind Landing Experimental Unit
processor (RAE)
active control technology BSI British Standards Institution
antenna coupler unit
CAR Civil Airworthiness Requirements
a computer language
CCS communications control system
air data computer
CDI course/deviation indicator
airstream direction detector
CDU control and display unit
automatic direction finding
CMOS RAM working memory (computer)
attitude direction indicator
CNI communications, navigation and
air data inertial reference system
identification
air data computer and inertial
COHO STALO coherent oscillator/stable local
reference unit
oscillator
air data module
actuator drive and monitor computer
CORE controlled requirement expression
automatic dependence surveillance
CPU central processing unit
address selective (SSR system)
CRT cathode ray tube
Airline Electrical Engineering
CSAS control and stability augmentation
Committee
CS/MA-CA carrier sense multiple access clash
avoidance
automatic flight control system
CVR cockpit voice recorder
automatic flight guidance system
attitude and heading reference DAFCS digital automatic flight control
system DATAC data-autonomous transmission and
attitude and heading reference unit communication
airborne interception digital engine control system
amplitude modulation digital engine control unit
automatic management, receiver and digital flight control system
intercom distance measuring equipment
aircraft motion sensing unit direction of arrival
aeronautical public correspondence Dowty & Smiths Industries
Aeronautical Radio Inc Controls
airborne self-protection jammer data transfer unit
air-to-surface vessel (radar) direct voice input
air-sea warfare (radar) electronic attitude director
air traffic control Experimental Aircraft Programme
automatic test equipment (BAe)
advanced tactical fighter airborne early warning radar
air transport racking electronic centralised aircraft
antenna tuning unit maintenance
bus controller electronic counter counter-measures
British Civil Airworthiness electronic counter-measures
Requirements electronic instrument system

vii
 Glossary of acronyms used in text

EICAS engine indicating and crew alert line replaceable unit

system lowest usable frequency
EPROM electronically programmable read- master armament selector switch
only memory mission adaptive wing
EEPROM or electronically erasable programmable maintenance data panel
E7PROM only memory main engine control unit
EFA European Fighter Aircraft multi-function colour display
EAS equivalent airspeed multi-function display
ELAC elevator/aileron computer management information and
ELINT electronic intelligence decision support
EMCS energy monitoring and control Massachusetts Institute of
system Technology
EME electromagnetic interference MLS microwave landing system
EOB electronic order of battle MOD Ministry of Defence
ESM electronic support measures MOSFET metal oxide silicon field effect
EUROCAE European Organisation for Civil- transistor
Aviation Electronics MPCD multi-purpose colour display
FAA Federal Aviation Administration MTBF mean time between failures
FAC flight augmentation computer MTI moving target indicator
FADEC full authority digital engine control NASA National Aeronautics and Space
FCS flight control system Administration
FEC forward error correction
NDB non-directional beacon
FFT fast Fourier transform (processor)
NPL National Physical Laboratory
FLIR forward looking infrared
FMCS flight management computer system PCM pulse code modulation
FMCU flight management control unit PFCU powered flying control unit
FMS flight management system PPI plan position indicator Alt. present
FSK frequency shift keying position indicator
PRF pulse repetition frequency
GEOS geostationary satellite
PSK phase shift keying
G-LOC G-induced loss of consciousness
GPS global positioning system Royal Aerospace Establishment
random access memory
hands on throttle and stick
relative bearing indicator
high-level operating language
radio direction/distance magnetic
horizontal situation indicator
indicator
head-up display
radio magnetic indicator
health and usage monitoring system
area navigation
International Civil Aviation read-only memory
Organisation round-trip timing
Institution of Electrical Engineers radio teletype
Institution of Electrical and rear warning radar
Electronic Engineers
identification, friend or foe
Society of Automotive Engineers
semi-automatic functional
instrument landing system
inertial navigation requirements analysis
integrated electronic warfare system surface acoustic wave
input/output unit standard instrument departure
instruction set architecture signals intelligence
International Telecommunications side-looking airborne radar
Union systems management processor
stores management system
Joint Airworthiness Requirements STOL manoeuvre technology
joint tactical information distribution demonstrator
system static source error correction
London Air Traffic Control Centre secondary surveillance radar
liquid crystal display standard terminal arrival route
low cycle fatigue counter short-take-off-and-landing
light-emiting diode structure usage monitoring
line of sight tactical air navigation
 Glossary of acronyms used in text

TDMA time division multiple access VHPIC very high performance integrated
THS trimmable horizontal surface circuit
(actuator) VLF very low frequency
TOA time of arrival VLSI very large-scale integration
LE travelling wave tube (CRT) VNAV vertical navigation
UDF unducted fan
VOR VHF omni-directional radio range
UHF ultra high frequency
VOR/DME VOR directional guidance with
DME distance measuring input
UMS utilities management system VORTAC combination of VOR and TACAN
USAF United States Air Force VOS voice-operated switch
USN United States Navy VSWR voltage standing wave ratio
UV PROM a computer programme memory
VERDAN versatile digital analyser
WAMS weapon aiming mode selection
VHF very high frequency
W/SMS weapon/stores management system
VHLSI very high large-scale integrated
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 GLOSSARY

Accelerometer Device for the measurement of acceleration.

Aeroelastic effects The result of interaction between aerodynamic forces and the structure of the
aircraft. Usually de-stabilising and harmful.
Airframe The complete assembly of the aircraft without its engine and removable items such
as external stores and furnishings.
Airspeed Velocity of aircraft in relation to the air through which it is flying.
Airspeed — Indicated (IAS) Reading shown on airspeed indicator. This does not take into account instrument
and error, position error and compressibility effect.
Airspeed — True (TAS) The indicated airspeed corrected for the factors mentioned in definition of IAS.
Algorithm An accepted method of computation either numerical or algebraic. A fundamental
procedure in the design of software.
Alphanumeric A precisely repeatable character, either a capital letter or numeral, produced by
electronic means to be displayed or read rapidly by OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) systems.
Analogue computer A calculating device operating by the representation of numerical values. Input
data can be processed from, for example, a control surface, so that all character-
istics of the control can be analysed in real time.
Anti-skid Device for preventing the wheels of an aircraft locking under braking conditions.
Artificial horizon Primary flight instrument to inform pilot of attitude of aircraft in relation to the
horizon ahead of the aircraft.
Authority — Total The ability of the control system to control in its entirety the functions to which
it is connected.
Authority — partial The exercise of partial control of functions.
Autopilot An electronic system which will automatically control the aircraft in pitch, roll and
yaw modes. It may be part of the Automatic Flight Control System in which case
it can be programmed to control the particular mode in which the aircraft is being
operated.
Autothrottle Propulsion engine control which may be linked to the AFCS and, if fitted, the
automatic landing system, to ensure that the engine power is controlled in accord-
ance with the operational requirements, such as maintenance of the glide path on
the approach.
Azimuth A bearing or direction in the horizontal plane.

Back beam The reciprocal beam on the other side of the transmitter, for example, of an ILS
localiser.
Bandwidth Range of frequencies within which an antenna circuit, component, equipment or
system will perform to its specification. Quoted in number of Hz between limits
of frequency band.
 Glossary

Bit (From binary digit). Unit of data in digital systems comprising single character
(0 or 1) in binary form.
Bit rate Speed at which data can be processed in system. Quoted in bits, kbits or Mbits
per second.
Brassboard A functioning prototype of an avionic system.
Breadboard A prototype, not necessarily capable of flight test, to prove the circuitry of an
aviénic system and its functional capability.
Burn-through range The point in space where the target’s signal amplitude exceeds the jamming signal
on the radar display.
Byte A group of bits processed as a single unit. An 8-bit electronic data processing
word would be a sequence of eight consecutive bits.

Canard An aircraft configuration with the horizontal stabiliser in front of the mainplane.
The foreplane is also known as the canard.
Category 2 approach An element of the bad-weather landing minima agreed by ICAO. A combination
of a decision height 200 to 100 ft (60-30 m) and visibility runway visual range
RVR of 2,600 to 1,300 ft (800-400 m).
Chaff/window Metallic, radar-reflecting strips used to saturate or confuse enemy radars.
Chip An electronic device sliced from a substrate of a single crystal semi-conductor.
Control algorithms Control laws. (See ALGORITHM).
Control of bleed Control of high-pressure bleed air from a gas turbine engine.
CORE Controlled Requirements Expression — a computer software definition tool.
Cross-coupled An aerodynamic destabilising interaction between two or more flight modes.

Data bank Retrievable storage system for digital information.

Data bus A system of inter-communication between different avionic units in the aircraft
which, by using multiplexing techniques of transmitting consecutive pulses divided
in frequency, phase and time along a very limited number of conductors, reduce
substantially the number of wiring looms.
Delta, delta-sigma Both convert analogue signal waveforms to single-digit code bit-streams. Delta
modulation converting the rate-of-change of the wave-form and delta-sigma the instantaneous
amplitude (by pre-integration before the delta comparator). This compares with
PCM, pulse code modulation, converting instantaneous amplitude into n-digit code
for amplitude levels. For example 4 digits give 2* = 16 amplitude levels. Circuitry
is simpler than in PCM.
Dedicated Applicable for only one application.
Demodulation The extraction of a modulated signal from its carrier.
Dielectric A material capable of sustaining an electrical field and undergoing polarisation,
a radome can be made of a composite material having dielectric properties.
Digital Functioning with discrete numbers, bits or other parcels of data.
Dipole An antenna (aerial) comprising two separate conductors in line and co-axially, fed
at the mid-point.
Directional gyro A free-gyro instrument used to indicate direction in azimuth.
Dutch roll A phenomenon, associated primarily with the first generation of swept wing
aircraft, in which a lateral oscillation with yawing and rolling elements occurred.

ECAM Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitoring.

EICAS Engine Indication and Crew Alert System.
EIS Electronic Instrumentation System.
Electronic countermeasures The actions taken to prevent, disrupt or reduce the enemy’s effective use of the
(ECM) electromagnetic spectrum.
 Glossary

Electronic support The interception, location and identification of radiated electromagnetic energy
measures (ESM) to provide emitter recognition and intelligence.
Electronic warfare (EW) The means of determining or disrupting the enemy’s use of the electromagnetic
spectrum whilst safeguarding its use for friendly forces.
Empennage The complete assembly of horizontal and vertical stabilisers of an aircraft.

Fan marker A position fixing radio beacon, keyed for identification, radiating in a fan-shaped
vertical pattern.
Fibre optics A method of transmitting control signals along thin fibres of glass or suitable plastic
material. Light entering at the end of the filament is transmitted by internal reflec-
tion. Fibres, generally of a few microns diameter, are assembled into bundles of
tens of thousands to over 100,000.
Flag Small, brightly coloured plate which emerges on the face of an electro-mechanical
instrument to give visual warning of a malfunction. Also used on solid-state
displays.
Flight envelope A series of curves of aircraft performance and other factors defining the maximum
limits within which the aircraft may be safely flown.
Flight profile Specification of complete flight usually in terms of altitude plotted against distance.
Fluxvalve/fluxgate Sensing element of a remotely indicating compass giving an electrical signal
proportional to the intensity of external magnetic field acting along its axis.
Fly-by-light (Colloq) Aircraft control system using fibre-optic filaments for the transmission of signals.
Fly-by-wire (Colloq) Aircraft control system using electrical wiring for the transmission of signals.

Gain scheduling The scheduling of the gain or amplification of a control circuit to modify the
control characteristics.
Gated An electromagnetic pulse functioning under the control of another pulse, usually
synchronised with it.
Geostationary satellite A satellite launched into a trajectory which ensures that it remains over a specific
point on the surface of the earth.
Glass cockpit (Colloq) A cockpit in which electronic displays have replaced the majority of conventional
flight instruments.
Glideslope/glidepath The descent path, at an angle from the horizontal, of an aircraft during the
approach and landing phase.
Ground clutter Returns on a radar screen caused by direct reflections from the ground. These
degrade the value of the display by interference.

Hardover condition A potentially hazardous situation when a control system unexpectedly develops a
fault which moves the control to the limit of its operating range.
Heterodyne The mixture of two AC electronic signals to generate a third one equal to the sum
or difference of their frequencies.
Holographic combining Special glass screens used in head-up displays which enhance the quality of the
glass images.
Hyperbolic systems Navaids based upon synchronised transmissions from ground stations — master and
slave, the transmissions produce upon the aircraft screen lines of constant time
difference to indicate range on the form of hyperbolic position lines as in the
Decca system.

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organisation.

IFF Identification Friend or Foe.
ILS Localiser Aerial and beam giving directional guidance in an instrument landing system.

xii
 Glossary
IN systems Inertial navigation systems.
Intake ramp A variable geometry wedge or wedges located in the air intakes of a supersonic
aircraft engine to create oblique shock waves to achieve maximum efficiency. These
are controlled automatically by the engine control system.
Integrated circuit Microelectronic device consisting of a series of circuits upon a single crystal,
usually silicon, substrate.
I/O card A card serving an input/output function; interfacing aircraft signals with digital
electronics.
Ionisation Conversion of atoms to ions (electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms).
Ionogram A graph plotting radio frequency against time of round trip of the pulse to the
reflective layer.
Ionosphere The whole of the ionised region of the atmosphere of the Earth, including
Appleton E and F layers and the Kennelly-Heaviside layer.

Keypads An array of push or press alphanumeric keys or buttons.

Laser Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Load alleviation A technique of electronic control, via sensors, which can alleviate, for example,
an excessive up-load on the wing by upward deflection of the ailerons in unison.

Magnetic isotropy Non-polarised magnetic field.

Manchester bi-phase A means of encoding digital data by recording a change of state as the signal
passes through zero.
Manoeuvre margin A quantity which defines the stability and hence manoeuvrability of an aircraft by
relating the centre of gravity distance from the centre of pressure in relation to
aircraft length.
MOD Ministry of Defence. (UK).
Monitoring devices Devices capable of continuous surveillance of performance of sub-systems. Some
are capable of initiating corrective action.
Multiplex Combination of signals from different sources into a common channel in which they
are separated by frequency, phase or time or a combination of these.
MPCD Multi-Purpose Colour Display.

Nap of the earth flying Flying as low as possible without hitting natural or man-made objects.
Non-volatile memory Not capable of erasure.

PAVE PILLAR A modular avionics architecture defined and developed by the US Air Force.
Phase The time relationship between two or more electronic frequencies.
Photon A parcel of magnetic energy emitted by a single electron.
Pi filter network Filter for impedance transformation and/or frequency selection.
Potentiometer A resistance with variable tap.
Pressure transducer Device capable of generating an electrical signal proportional to fluid pressure or
pressure difference. ;
Probe External device upon the aircraft to sptath information about the air through which
it is flying and the relationship between the aircraft attitude and the free stream
flow.
Protocol A library of messages held by operational organisations to suit that particular
organisation’s requirements. :
PTT button ‘Press to transmit’ button.
Pulsed radar The most common form of radar with signals emitted in the form of pulses.
i

xiii
 Glossary

Racetrack pattern Flight path of an airways holding pattern comprising two semi-circles joined by
two parallel legs.
Radar warning receiver An ESM equipment providing threat warning, identification and direction of
(RWR) enemy radar transmissions.
Radio range Early American radio navigation aid, land-based, broadcasting continuous coded
signals, Morse N was heard to the right of the correct flight path, Morse A to
the left of it.
Raster Production of a CRT image by scanning in closely spaced horizontal lines either
alternately or in sequence as in a domestic television receiver.
Reheat/afterburning Injection and combustion of extra fuel in a specially designed jetpipe to give thrust
augmentation.
Resonant cavity magnetron A device comprising a closed hollow space with electrically conductive walls within
which microwaves are generated by the excitation of an electron beam within a
magnetic field.
Rho-theta Radio navigation aid providing bearing and distance from a particular station.

SAFRA Semi-Automated Functional Requirements Analysis — a software development tool.

Servo controls System of powering aircraft controls to augment the strength of the pilot and to
provide feedback to indicate degree of force required.
Skip distance The distance from a transmitter at which the first reflected sky wave may be
received. =
Slat Moveable part of wing leading edge which can be moved forwards or downwards
mechanically to form a slot with the wing surface to delay airflow breakaway.
Slew Control (HOTAS) Control for pilot to initiate rapid slew of weapon laying symbology.
Smart (1) Particularly ingenious use of a device, ie smart skin — capable of being used
as an antenna or for uses other than structural. (2) Devices with integral intel-
ligence.
Softkey A key whose function is programmed by software to change for differing modes
of operation.
Spoiler Moveable surface at upper rear surface of wing which can be deflected or opened
to reduce lift and/or increase drag.
Stolport Airport for the use of short take-off and landing aircraft. eg London City.
Stores A load related to the mission of a military aircraft, carried either on external pylons
or within the fuselage. eg bombs, sub-munitions, missiles, drop tanks.
Stovl Short take-off vertical landing.
Strapdown Device in aircraft not mounted upon gimbals.
Supercritical wing Wing designed for efficient cruise performance above the critical Mach number,
typically has a bluff leading edge, fairly flat top surface with a cambered under-
surface. :
Symbol generator Computer for the production of symbols for CRT displays.
Synchro resolver (AC) A three wire AC transmission system used for remote indication which can resolve
and identify the difference in the current in the three wires.
Systems integrator An avionic unit which integrates the outputs of two or more discrete systems.

“Thermal imaging Infra-red technique of producing pictorial displays or print-outs to show tempera-
ture variations in field of view.
Thermistor A resistor, the value of which varies with temperature.

Thrust vectoring Technique of varying direction of thrust of a jet or rocket motor by altering the
direction of the jetpipe(s). eg Harrier.
Tilt switch Switch activated by tilting its location.
xiv
 Glossary
Touchscreen Alphanumeric readout of commands and data on a screen which can be activated
or interrogated by the pilot touching the relevant word or display.
Transistor Electronic device consisting of a semiconductor which can amplify or control
inputs to it.
Travelling wave tube A type of microwave amplifier in which an interaction occurs between an electron
beam and a radio frequency field travelling in the same or the opposite direction.
Triad American deterrent philosophy embracing the simultaneous effect of submarine-
launched ballistic missiles, orthodox manned bombers and silo based ballistic
missiles on land.

Unducted fan A propulsion unit comprising a gas turbine engine driving a multi-bladed propeller
designed to give efficient cruise at high sub-sonic speeds.
USMS Utility Systems Management System — the integrated system fitted to the EAP.

Vi Speed at which pilot in command must decide to take-off or abort.

V2 Take-off safety speed, the lowest at which the aircraft will meet the handling
criteria of the climb with one engine inoperative.
V, Speed on the runway at which the PIC will commence take-off by rotating the
aircraft into the lift-off attitude.
VOR beacon A fixed beacon radiating a circular pattern horizontally. Upon this is superimposed
a rotating directional pattern at 30 Hz the output phase modulation of which is
unique to each heading established from the beacon which, itself, is part of the
VOR — VHF omnidirectional radio range, the most common of radio navaids.
Voter monitoring Binary logic system which can compare signals in several channels and detect a
mismatch which may develop; the mismatched output is then ‘voted out’.

Waypoint A fixed, accurately defined location which forms the beginning or the end of a
particular airline or military route segment.

Yaw Movement of an aircraft about its Oz or normal axis as initiated by the rudder(s).
Yaw damper Automatic sub-system of flying control system which senses the onset of yaw and
initiates the correct control action to overcome it.

xv
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CHAPTER 1 THE EVOLUTION OF AVIONICS
MICHAEL W. WILSON BSc, CEng, MRAeS

Mr Wilson is a writer and consultant on technical aspects of aviation. He joined

Vickers-Armstrong’s Guided Weapons Department in 1956, later transferring to
systems engineering on Vanguard, VC 10 and TSR 2 aircraft. In 1965 he was
appointed Technical Editor of Flight International. From 1978 to 1981 Mr.
Wilson was Public Relations executive, Carl Byoir. In 1981 he was invited to
develop and launch Jane’s Avionics Yearbook. Since 1985 Mr Wilson’s activities
have been equally shared between aviation writing and consultancy and editing a
Christian magazine Prophecy Today.

EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF AVIONICS

Avionics is the now universally accepted shorthand for aeronautical or aviation

electronics, an industry that began to blossom during the Second World War and
has now come into astonishing flower. The term originated during the 1960s in
the USA when the Western defence industry as a whole was undergoing rapid
and radical change, in no small way spurred by the 1950-53 Korean War. Urgent
and generous defence budgets pushed forward a host of new technologies to
maintain national and international security in the face of growing and world-wide
tensions.
The rapid advance in aviation electronics did not, of course, take place in
isolation, but was in step with developments in this field for a wide range of
industrial, commercial, scientific, defence and other applications. But while
avionics represents a relatively small proportion of the total electronics market, it
exercises a quite disproportionate influence as a result of aviation’s special needs
for reliability, low weight, small size and minimal power consumption. Strictly
speaking, the term ‘avionics’ should be reserved only for equipment specially
designed for airborne application and carried as part of that application. Thus a
ground-based test or check-out system is not categorised as avionics, and neither
is flight-test equipment installed for aircraft development and certification
purposes. Again, to qualify, the electrical currents circulating in a system should
substantially comprise information signals rather than heavy duty energy to activate
electro-mechanical devices. Thus an electrical generator would not be classified
as avionics. In practice, the subject has rather blurred edges, so that for example
a turn and slip indicator (basically an electric motor with a spring attached) would
now come under the term; the context is usually sufficient to show whether the
description is appropriate or not.
The Wright brothers showed the practicability of powered flight in 1903 with
their Flyer. For the first few years the tiny band of pioneers was too busy finding
é

1
 The Evolution ofAvionics

out about the fundamentals of flight to spend much time on the ‘frills’ that were
to come later. But August 1910 saw the first recorded application of electronics,
when Canadian designer and pilot J.D. A. McCurdy transmitted and received
wireless signals via an H. M. Morton set in his Curtiss seaplane at Sheepshead
Bay, New York State. The following month saw another demonstration, this time
in England, when the pilot of a Bristol Boxkite over the British Army’s firing
ranges on Salisbury Plain signalled ‘enemy in sight’ to a ground-based receiver
a quarter of a mile away.
Aeroplanes came into their own, as weapons, during the First World War. In
that conflict, operated by armies of different nationalities, they were used for
reconnaissance, noting enemy troop concentrations, and for calling fall-of-shot for
the artillery. The latter task, a real-time application as we would now say, called
for an air-to-ground radio link. ,
Of little use at the time, but curiously prophetic, was the demonstration in 1914
in Paris by Lawrence Sperry of a gyroscopically-based control system for keeping
an aeroplane in level flight without the intervention of a human pilot (Fig. 1.1).
Sperry had already developed the gyroscope to a high degree of perfection and
saw the aeroplane as a new and potentially important business opportunity. Apart
from being grossly under-powered, aircraft before 1914 generally exhibited very
poor handling qualities and so could be difficult to fly. His equipment, fitted to
a Curtiss flying boat, was an example of what would now be called an autostability
system. Sperry was later to devise the turn-and-slip indicator, the simplest of all
blind-flying devices. This gyro-based instrument was to launch Sperry into the
flight-instrument (and, later, flight-control) field.
An advance on the turn-and-slip, the artificial horizon provides much more in-
formation and is easier to interpret; some of the very first examples provided the
essential attitude guidance for crews of the big Gotha bombers during their long-
range night raids on London in 1918. About this time, too, yet another gyro-based
instrument appeared — the directional gyro; updated by a magnetic compass, it had
a steady needle movement and so was much easier to use, particularly in the rapid
establishment of a new heading. By the end of the war Britain also had a strategic
night-attack force, and both sides had begun to get a feel for at least two of the
problems that were to bug bomber pilots over Europe for the next thirty years —
navigation and target recognition in poor weather and at night. |
The First World War gave impetus to aircraft design and huge strides. were
made in structural efficiency, aerodynamics, engine power and reliability. But
instrumentation was still simple: direct-reading engine RPM, oil temperature and
pressure gauges, airspeed indicator, altimeter and compass continued for many
Fig. 1.1 An attempt at aircraft years to be the principal guides to aircraft behaviour and progress. None of these
stabilisation was instruments contained any electronic, or even electrical, elements; wireless
made by Lawrence continued as the sole forerunner of the avionics revolution to come.
Sperry in 1914 when Military aircraft development after 1918 slowed almost to a halt; the huge mass-
he fitted a cluster or acres of trench warfare had sickened people and turned governments away from
gyroscopes to a
Curtiss flying boat
re-armament. But new challenges appeared for aviation. America, Britain, France
and flew over the and Italy encouraged or supported long-range flights to open up new areas of
Seine with his wilderness or provide better links with empires or colonies. At the same time small
mechanic walking airlines began to mushroom, sometimes serving just one or two routes. In particular,
along the wing whilst the government-regulated mail services were seen as tempting markets, with built-
Sperry flew the boat
‘hands off’? British in subsidies; however they called for strict schedules, emphasising among other
Aerospace Dynamics things accurate and reliable poor-weather navigation.
Bracknell The possibilities of using radio for navigation as well as for communication had
 Early development ofavionics

.fe?
Pe a
rf
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ii[eiperentiny
 The Evolution of Avionics

been appreciated quite early on; during the First World War wireless was used
to ‘fix’ the position of Zeppelin airships on their way to bomb London. The method
adopted was to broadcast signals to radio stations in Germany, which measured
by triangulation the ship’s position and then transmitted it to the crew. The same
method was used in a remarkable, 3000-mile flight by a Zeppelin airship during
1917, from Bulgaria to the relief of a military unit in German East Africa.
Radio was soon recognised by the infant airline industry as an essential adjunct
to the safe, efficient and profitable conduct of its business. It provided pilots with
weather reports and surface-pressure measurements for altimeter setting, the
former being particularly valuable in considering the availability of alternative
airports in the event of fog or dangerously low cloud: Speech communication was
employed for short to medium ranges, but Morse code was preferable at longer
distances since the limited transmitter power could be channelled into a much
smaller bandwidth, permitting the signals to punch their way through static or
thunderstorm interference in a way not possible with speech under the same
conditions.
Perhaps even more valuable to the new airlines was the radio range navigation
aid. An American invention, radio range defined the position of an airport by four
radio beams in the form of a cross, the beams being identified by the Morse letters
for A and N. The pilot could find the centre-line of a beam by listening in on
head-phones and steering until the letters were heard with equal strength. To
help him fix his position (as opposed to direction), so-called ‘fan-markers’ were
arranged to direct beams vertically upwards.
These radio rangers were the forerunners of today’s sophisticated airways
systems which are defined by radio beacons. But operating in the HF band, they
Fig. 1.2 Curtiss Condor
airliner, were susceptible to interference by weather and could be ‘bent’ or deflected by
1933 American natural or artificial obstacles on the ground. They could thus be tricky to use, and
Airlines navigation was often a full-time occupation for the second pilot of the two-man
 Early development ofavionics

crews which came to be seen as obligatory for the new multi-engined airliners of
the late 1920s.
By the early 1930s the airlines had established themselves as a viable form of
transport. Aircraft began to grow in size and complexity and be capable of longer
flights, by day and by night. They were beginning to put considerable physical
strain on their pilots. Airlines’ staffs and aircraft designers put their heads together
to work out ways by which pilots could be relieved of some of the many tasks they
were now shouldering, and to transform them from ‘one-armed paper hangers’ into
managers. The first fruits of these discussions appeared in 1933, when Eastern
Airlines (then known as Eastern Air Transport) began accepting a fleet of Curtiss-
Fig. 1.3 Lockheed Vega. Wright Condor twin-engined biplane airliners (Fig. 1.2) fitted with the world’s
Wiley Post, in first autopilots. The Sperry Al electro-hydraulic systems did much to reduce the
‘Winnie Mae’, made
physical efforts of flying big transports on the popular New-York—Miami route,
the first solo flight
around the world in with its notoriously bad East Coast weather in winter.
1933, flying 15,596 In the same year Wiley Post had a Sperry A2 autopilot fitted to his Lockheed
miles in 7 days 18 Vega monoplane Winnie Mae for his solo, round-the-world flight (Fig. 1.3). By
hours and 493 the mid- to late 1930s autopilots were in general use to ease the workload in multi-
minutes. A Sperry
A2 autopilot was
engined aircraft that were now weighing up to 20,000 lb. By that time re-armament
fitted Lockheed had begun in Europe and the USA, and the first examples of the new generation
California Company of four-engined bombers were being laid down. The performance of Britain’s new
The Evolution ofAviontes

Stirlings and Halifaxes and the B-17 Fortresses and B-24 Liberators from Amer-
ican stables, with twice the speed of the Douglas DC-3 and Boeing 247 commer-
cial ‘twins’, called for substantially better autopilots. In the UK pneumatic systems
continued to rule (in essence, offshoots of the air-driven attitude and turn indi-
cators), but the newer Sperry and Minneapolis-Honeywell autopilots in the USA
were electrically driven.
In addition, the new US systems could be ‘slaved’ to the secret and much-
lauded Norden bomb-sight. Much more complex than their commercial aircraft
predecessors, these bomber autopilots weighed up to 250 Ib. Nevertheless, like
every other item of electronic equipment on the aircraft, they were ‘add-ons’,
designed in isolation from the aircraft; it would be-another twenty years before
the word ‘integration’ entered the designer’s vocabulary.

ORIGINS OF RADAR

The prospect and advent of the heavy bomber gave impetus to considerations of
detecting attacking fleets at a distance, giving time for defensive forces to be
alerted and placed in position. Lord Trenchard, first leader of the Royal Air
Force, had since the 1920s held the view that ‘the bomber would always get
through’ and, notably in the UK, his convictions promoted the search for elec-
tronic means of long-range detection. Early experiments to detect aircraft from the
infra-red emission of their engines failed because the detectors could not be made
sufficiently sensitive — their time had not yet come. But British research in another
waveband, around 30 MHz, showed that metal aircraft structures generated
echoes when illuminated by a ground-based transmitter (Fig. 1.4). The discovery
was put to good use during the Battle of Britain, when not only could German
bomber fleets assembling over the French coast be detected while still out of visual
range, but also an assessment of their strengths could be made so that the response
of the waiting Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons could be carefully tailored to meet
each situation.
The Chain Home early warning radar was invaluable in defeating the daylight
raids, and the German Air Force turned its attention to night bombing. To counter
the new threat, Britain’s Telecommunications Research Establishment initiated the
development of a family of airborne detection radars. They were fitted, initially,
to Blenheim 1 night-fighters and later to Mosquitoes (Fig. 1.5) and Beaufighters.
With a range of only a mile or so (ground clutter intervened at longer distance),
the intercepting aircraft had to be directed, or ‘vectored’, to the vicinity of the
target by ground radar before the latter could be picked up. The fighters had two-
man crews — pilot and radar operator, and considerable skill was needed to inter-
pret the crude, ‘raw-echo’ displays. Nearly simultaneous radar developments were
afoot in Germany, and, when two years later the RAF began to launch large-scale
night raids, many crews and aircraft fell victim to similar radar systems flying in
Messerschmitt Bf 110 and Junkers Ju 88 twin-engined, two-seat night-fighters,
also controlled from the ground, though later tactics involved independent oper-
ation with improved, longer-range equipment.
At the beginning of the Second World War new and revolutionary techniques
appeared, known as electronic countermeasures (see Chapter Ten). The early
activities involved the subtle deflection of German navigation beams so that the
bombers ‘riding’ them by night would drop their bombs harmlessly in open coun-
tryside instead of on cities such as Coventry and Derby. The idea of ‘spoofing’
the enemy’s interrogation transmissions was to catch on widely, one of the first
 Origins of radar

cs ANE

Fig. 1.4 On 26 February 1935 Dr Robert Watson-Watt used the Royal Aircraft Establishment Handley Page Heyford
bomber, K 6902, to demonstrate, with the cooperation of the BBC transmitter at Daventry and a primitive radar
receiver using a cathode ray tube made by Cossor, that an aircraft flying in the vicinity of the transmitter could
be detected. The experiment was repeated in December 1936 and later an airborne transmitter and receiver
detected echoes from the coast near Harwich.
The equipment was designed by Dr. E. G. Bowen and his colleagues at the Telecommunications Research
Establishment at Bawdsey in collaboration with Dr Watson-Watt who was the Superintendent at the National
Physical Laboratory at Slough.
This was the beginning of development of AI and ASV radar — so valuable in the Second World
War Handley Page Association.

A.|. aerials

A.l. aerials

Fig. 1.5 De Havilland DH

98 Mosquito Mk II
night fighter with
early aircraft
identification (AI)
aerials on nose and
wings British
Aerospace, Hatfield
 The Evolution of Aviontes

Fig. 1.6 Handley Page airborne applications of the technique being code-named Window. Vast numbers
Halifax heavy of thin metal strips, acting as half-wave dipoles, were dropped by the bomber force
bomber with H2S on its way to the target to jam the German detection and tracking radars. Window,
blister under rear
fuselage Handley
now called chaff, is still a greatly used and cheap method of jamming hostile radars.
Page Association The British night-bomber offensive over Germany highlighted the grave navi-
gation and target-recognition deficiencies over a dark, rain-laden Europe that
should have been appreciated years before. A combination of area navigation
systems such as Gee, point navigation aids like Oboe and target indentifications
devices like H2S (Fig. 1.6), however, greatly improved the effectiveness of the
strategic night offensive. Gee was a system for broadcasting synchronised trans-
missions from three ground stations, resulting in an interference pattern over a
very large area that could be measured and processed by an airborne receiver to
provide a navigation fix up to distances of several hundred miles from the trans-
mitters. Oboe was an intersecting beam system that, unlike Gee, could be used
by only one aircraft at a time owing to the collision risk. Again based on ground
transmitters, it was a precision device, and as such was used by individual aircraft
to mark targets by means of flares to guide the main bomber force. H2S however
was an airborne radar directed at the ground to ‘paint’ a map of the terrain, from
which details of the target could be made out. An important derivative of H2S was
the ASV (Air to Surface Vessel) radar carried by maritime patrol aircraft such
as Whitleys, Sunderlands and Catalinas for detecting enemy submarines.
In all of the airborne radar development, the pacing factor was the need to boost
the power level of the transmitted beam to increase range, and push up the
frequency of the energy so that finer detail could be made out. The Chain Home
ground-based early warning system worked at a wavelength of 50 metres and early
airborne radars operated at around 1.5 metres. However, space limitations
 Origins of radar
precluded large aerials, especially on night-fighters, and the need for better
resolution with small antennas was a further spur to extend the frequency range.
A major breakthrough came with the invention, in Britain, of the resonant-cavity
magnetron, which could generate energy at around 10 centimetres, in what later
came to be called the microwave region. Not until a crashed aircraft was examined
did German engineers discover the new development. These centimetric radars
had another advantage: they could use internally mounted dish-like reflectors
rather than the external, drag-producing stick-type aerials.
Together with the development of radar (initially known by its British inventors
as ‘radiolocation’, the more precise American term ‘radar’ as a shortened form of
‘radio detection and ranging’ soon came into universal use) came the first efforts
in the twin technology of signal processing. Scientists were well aware that the
raw radar echoes contained a large quantity of potentially valuable information
locked up in them. In the UK the first efforts in this direction were made to
improve the performance of radars for single-seat fighters, in which the pilot had
little time to spare on radar management. Little headway was made in the UK, the
German bomber offensive having petered out by the end of 1941. However US
aircraft such as Navy Hellcats successfully employed pilot-only radars against the
Japanese in the Pacific war. Signal-processing was eventually to become a huge
activity, employing top brains and substantial budgets. Today it is recognised as
the key in airborne radar performance. Much of the progress in today’s systems
is due to the work done by NASA, the US National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, in processing the faint, blurred images of the planets returned by
the first American deep-space probes such as the Mariners.
The new navigation and target-detection aids produced a flood of information
that had to be digested as far as possible, and presented to the crew in a
convenient way. Attention therefore focused on the improvisation of commercial,
pre-war cathode-ray tubes for this purpose. Development over many years has
produced a breed of tube with great resolution, and one moreover which is
‘sunlight-visible’, in other words, the picture or ‘symbology’ is bright enough to
be seen even in the presence of direct sunlight, as may be the situation in the
cockpit of a typical modern fighter with a transparent canopy permitting the pilot
an all-round view.
Another development in the field of displays was the gyro gunsight, yet another
application of the gyroscope principle. Pre-war fighters typically carried a tradi-
tional ‘ring and bead’ sight. While satisfactory ina stern chase, it provided no
guidance to the pursuing pilot on how much lead angle to allow his guns in turning
flight. Shooting proficiency was therefore based on pilot judgement. But with a
gyroscopically compensated aiming point there was now much less room for error.
Gyro gunsights continue to enjoy a large market among purchasers of light combat
aircraft, but an even bigger one as aiming devices for ground-based anti-aircraft
guns. With the advent of electronic data-processing, however, they were recog-
nised as having great new possibilities. In the late 1950s and early 1960s they
emerged as head-up displays, or HUDs. Continuing [Link], along with the
introduction of fast analogue (and, later, digital) computing elements, led to devices
of extraordinary versatility, with operational modes to suit every phase of flight-
navigation, terrain-clearance or terrain following, combat or ground attack, and
providing release and guidance information on every type of airborne weapon.
Since the mid-1970s they have become the principal information interface between
the pilot of the aircraft and his target. The first aircraft to be equipped with a
HUD was probably the US Navy’s A-5 Vigilante low-level carrier bomber.
j
 The Evolution of Avionics

In the decade 1945-55 aviation made the transition into the jet age. Almost
overnight, fighters could fly half as fast again and reach much greater heights. By
1958 the first-generation jet airliners and military transports were flying. All had
substantially greater performance than their piston-engined predecessors, in
particular a much greater speed range. It was at this stage that some of the
penalties of jet aviation became apparent. Aircraft became short of fuel very
quickly, especially low down, and so more efficient navigation was needed to
ensure accurate flying and prevent the pilot becoming lost. At the same time
undesirable aerodynamic qualities began to manifest — Dutch roll in heavy trans-
ports and dangerous roll/pitch cross-coupling in the later Mach 1-plus fighters
such as the F-100 Super Sabre.
These problems were not amenable to solution by changes or refinements in the
design of the airframe itself. They were overcome, or at least minimised, by the
introduction of control systems to provide a degree of ‘artificial’ stability to remove
unpleasant motion in passenger aircraft and to protect the airframe from potentially
catastrophic damage in the case of highly manoeuvrable fighters. The provision
of artificial stability, or stability augmentation as it has come to be known, has been
a requirement in most, if not all, swept-wing transport aircraft and fighters up to
the present day. The simplest devices are known as yaw-dampers, comprising gyro-
based motion sensors generating signals of suitable phase and magnitude that act
on the rudder through an actuator to oppose any aircraft motion not commanded
by the pilot. In some aircraft stability augmentation is needed in all phases of flight,
in others flight may be continued with an inoperative system if speed and/or height
are reduced. Nowadays yaw-dampers are fitted to many unswept-wing aircraft of
quite low performance to improve their handling qualities.
The advent of yaw-dampers (some of which appeared as early as the latter years
of the Second World War) marked the end of an age when electronic devices
could be considered as optional, and not in any way associated with the perform-
ance or handling of an aircraft. From now on they would be given just as much
consideration during the design stages as any other system.
The radio range beacon navigation system devised in the USA continued to
be improved over the years, but was eventually replaced by another beacon system
that in the 1960s was to attain world-wide acceptance: VOR, or VHF Omni-
Range. Operating at much higher frequencies than radio range, it was more
accurate and less susceptible to interference but — like its forebear — employed
simple and cheap-to-build radio receivers virtually identical with those used for
voice communication; indeed, the two functions for light-aircraft users are often
packaged into a single box known as a nay-com.
The war in the Pacific, as the Americans chased the Japanese back to their
homeland in a series of long-distance, island-hopping campaigns, showed up the
need for a self-contained navigation system, one independent of ground beacons
that could fade, be jammed or destroyed, and with global coverage rather than the
local-area guidance of ground stations. American industry approached the problem
by arranging a marriage between gyros (which by now had reached a high degree
of perfection) and sensitive accelerometers to produce a new method known as
inertial navigation. The first such system, built naturally enough by Sperry,
emerged in 1950 and was flown experimentally in a Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was
heavy, expensive, took several hours to warm up and reach a steady temperature,
and exhibited severe drift. Ten years later IN systems (as they came to be called)
were being fitted to a new generation of US high-performance military aircraft,
and a decade later had been chosen as the principal navigation equipment on the
10
 Origins of radar

British Caledonian z=

Fig. 1.7. Boeing 747 in three wide-body transports — Boeing 747 (Fig. 1.7), Lockheed L-1011 TriStar
British Caledonian and Douglas DC-10 —- then in final design. They were certainly expensive: the
Airlines three separate IN systems required on the 747 to meet US and UK airworthiness
livery British
Caledonian Airlines
standards in respect of performance and ability to ‘ride’ failures cost around
$300,000, but rapidly proved their worth.
Another self-contained navigation device developed more or less simultaneously
with IN was Doppler, a radar that measures frequency differences between echoes
from beams directed ahead of and behind an aircraft. Whereas an inertial navi-
gation system measures acceleration, adds it up over a period of time to give speed,
and a second time to provide present position, Doppler measures speed, from
which one integration gives aircraft position. Doppler was considerably less
expensive than IN because it employed a technology with virtually no moving parts;
IN on the other hand used a host of delicate motors, synchros, slip-rings and
costly gimbals and bearings. Doppler tended to be used in older, medium-range
aircraft such as Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s. However IN did have the
advantage that the attitude gimbals on which the accelerometers were fixed could
supply pitch and roll information to flight instruments such as the artificial horizon
(nowadays providing considerably more data than just aircraft attitude, and called
the flight director) and autopilot or autostabilisation system.
In terms of performance, IN and Doppler tend to be complementary (see
Chapter Seven). Inertial navigation equipment is very accurate over short periods
of time, but drifts slowly owing to minute imperfections in the mechanical elements
— gimbals, accelerometers and gyros. Doppler on the other hand can show quite
large errors from one second to another as the aircraft flies over irregular ground
11
 The Evolution of Aviontes

and sea, but over a period they cancel out. Some long-range combat aircraft
combine the two in a Doppler-monitored inertial navigation system, the two
characteristics combined to provide a very accurate system over long ranges. For
military aircraft with IN only, the drift problemis overcome by taking navigation
‘fixes’ from time to time en route to the target and resetting the system.
IN and Doppler are examples of what are now called ‘area navigation’ systems:
provided the coordinates of departure are set into the equipment before take-off,
they will compute the position of the host aircraft wherever it flies. The ground-
based, so-called hyperbolic systems such as Gee also provide area-navigation
performance within their coverage. By contrast, beacon systems show aircraft
position with regard to fixed ground references, and external calculation is needed
every time a fix is required. With the advent of microprocessors the computation
can be run continuously and automatically, providing local area-navigation, or
RNAV, performance. ,
Loran (Long-range navigation), basically a development of the Gee system used
for navigation during the Second World War is now a popular and inexpensive
navigation system. Based on ground-stations, it has the attraction, once again, of
requiring only receiver technology. Another beacon-based system is Omega, which
together with the US Navy’s VLF Very Low Frequency network designed basi-
cally for submarines, is beginning to be widely used.
Meanwhile a satellite-based navigation system called GPS/Navstar is now
undergoing operational trials in a variety of aircraft, ships and land vehicles.
Initiated by the US Defense Department, Navstar is a network of 18 satellites in
highly inclined, non-stationary orbits, each broadcasting time and position signals
from which ground or airborne receivers may fix their position. Once again, as
a passive (and militarily secure) receiving system, Navstar will be relatively inex-
pensive to the user. It will however, provide accuracy of a hitherto unknown order
— errors of only a few feet are claimed. It is likely that the system will also be made
available to commercial users such as the airlines and general aviation in the same
way that Omega VLF was offered.
Communications technology has had something of a facelift (see Chapter Eight).
Up to 1940 the standard communication frequencies were to be found in the 2-30
MHz band. But in that year the first VHF sets were produced. Operating at more
than 100 MHz, they arrived just in time and had a new clarity of performance to
benefit control of the RAF fighter squadrons during the Battle of Britain. Its line-
of-sight coverage was a limitation at that time. Later still, UHF was developed,
with even better performance. Meanwhile HF remained obligatory for long-
distance flight, its exasperatingly unpredictable qualities calling for a full-time
crew member in the form of a radio operator. But in the 1970s the advent of
microprocessors opened up a way to process automatically the HF waveband and
latch onto the purest signals at any one time. HF is therefore enjoying something
of a revival, and what was once a moribund technology is now attracting a new
generation of communication engineers to further improve the breed. A direct
result of this development is that the radio operator has become an extinct, or
nearly extinct, species, joining the navigator, who was deposed by automated
navigation systems.
Airborne radar for combat aircraft has undergone intensive improvement and
refinement. As related earlier, the world’s first airborne interception radars became
operational with the RAF in 1940. Its first recorded ‘kill’ occurred in November
of that year as a result of the guidance provided to the pilot of a Beaufighter by
his Mk IV set. The principal limitation was the need for a ground-control system
12 ‘
 Origins of radar

(with a much more powerful radar) to guide the pilot to within a few miles of his
target. The development of magnetrons to generate more power and the move to
centimetric wavelengths produced a narrower beam with a greater power density,
substantially increasing range.
These early pulsed radars had a major and fundamental limitation — they could
not ‘look down’ to detect targets at a lower altitude because their relatively small
echoes were lost amid the flood of returns from the ground. The way forward was
through an application of the Doppler principle, in which echoes whose movement
corresponded to the speed of the aircraft were suppressed. But for this operation
to be possible the shape and phase of successive pulses had to be very closely
similar, in other words, the generating device was required to produce pulse trains
with great coherence. The magnetron could not do this, and radars had to await
a new development, the travelling-wave tube TWT which has another advantage
in being able to generate pulse trains with a much higher average power level,
giving greater detection ranges. The current generation fighters, such as Panavia
Tornado (Fig. 5.19) F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon can operate in air-to-air, air-
to-ground, air-to-surface vessel modes for attack, ground-mapping, homing on to
refuelling tankers and terrain-following, and scan the skies for perhaps 100 miles
ahead while automatically tracking maybe a dozen targets and drawing the pilot’s
attention to those which pose the greatest risk or which represent the most
attractive targets.
Whilst electronic countermeasures in the form of Window were being used more
than forty years ago, general acceptance of the need for combat aircraft to have
some form of defence against missiles and their tracking radars was long delayed.
The aircraft flown by the late Gary Powers did not have such protection, and its
destruction on a reconnaissance flight over the USSR in 1960 in what became
known as the ‘U-2 incident’ alerted everyone to the deficiency. The first of many
US combat aircraft to fall victim to Soviet missiles in Vietnam was downed five
years later. US government and industry moved swiftly, and combat aircraft were
equipped with receivers on wings, nose and tail that could detect radiation from
missiles or missile control centres and give warning to the pilot of the direction
of approach. The pilot could then either take evasive action or fire chaff (the
modern equivalent of Window) to jam radar-guided missiles, or intense flares to
fool weapons that home onto the infra-red radiation from the prospective target’s
engines (see Chapter 10).
The invention and subsequent development of lasers has made an impact on
aviation in two areas (see Chapter Seven). The first application is as a replacement
for conventional gyro-based attitude sensors in inertial navigation systems. Laser
beams generated by a central source are projected in opposite directions around
a small, triangular glass cavity. Any rotation of the cavity is revealed as a phase
difference between the two beams since they now travel different distances. In a
practical ring-laser gyro, or RLG as the devices are termed, three such cavities are
mounted in a box at right-angles to one another to sense pitch, roll and yaw.
Together with their corresponding accelerometers, they are rigidly mounted in the
box and are therefore not space-stabilised, unlike a conventional gyro IN system.
A major advantage is that there are no moving parts to go wrong. The second
application is target-ranging. Accurate weapon delivery to a ground target is criti-
cally dependent on a knowledge of the distance of the target from the attacking
aircraft so that the weapon can be established on an appropriate trajectory. While
range is usually measured now by means of radar, the beam width is quite wide
at the commonly used, x-band (10 cm) wavelengths. But laser energy, typically with
13
 The Evolution ofAviontes

a wavelength of 10~* cm, can be directed into a much narrower beam so that the
measurement error, when the beam illuminates the ground at a grazing angle, is
very much less.
The extraordinary pace of development in airborne electronics over the past two
and a half decades is due largely to the advent of two important technologies. The
first was the invention of the transistor by US scientists in the late 1940s, the
second, the widescale change from analogue to digital techniques in the 1970s.

TRANSITION FROM THERMIONIC VALVES TO SOLID STATE

Transistor technology entered aviation during the middle 1950s and revolutionised
aircraft design. Within a short time it had displaced thermionic valve (vacuum tube
in US terminology) methods for virtually*all airborne applications. Whereas the
latter brought with it fragility and susceptibility to damage, great bulk and weight,
large power demands and onerous cooling problems, the new devices were robust,
small and light, used much less energy and created fewer demands on cooling
facilities. The early devices were made from germanium but silicon superseded this
material on account of its superior high-temperature reliability. Because of its
advantages over valve equipment, transistorised systems came to be used for a
multitude of new functions. Continued development led to progressive reductions
in size and weight and the appearance of ‘chips’ containing many hundreds or
thousands of transistors. All of these advantages were embodied in the description
‘solid-state’.

Digital systems While these new circuits offered so many advantages, they remained analogue in
nature, just like their valve forebears. Analogue systems suffer from drift and from
inherent and difficult-to-eradicate errors, tend to be heavy, and are not amenable
to rapid modification to suit changed requirements. But the advent of microelec-
tronics (see Chapter Three) paved the way for airborne computing because great
capacity and speed could now be accommodated within an acceptably sized
package. The first computer designed specifically for airborne use was the Auto-
netics Verdan (versatile digital analyser) designed for the North American A-5
Vigilante, a US Navy carrier bomber that became operational in the early 1960s.
Britain’s near-contemporary TSR 2 tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft (Fig.
3.1) also used Verdan during its brief, flight-test only career. Verdan comprised
several quite large boxes and, as a central information-handling device, processed
signals from every other major electronic system. At the same time progress was
being made in the other ingredient necessary to exploit the full advantages of
digital information processing — data buses. The signals handled by Verdan were
tailored to individual equipment characteristics and processed independently. But
with the data-bus technique signals were distributed from a central computer
around the aircraft on a single cable pair, rather like a domestic ring-main electric-
ity-supply system. This has now become the standard technique for the dissemi-
nation of information.
The efficiency of digital systems is measured by the cost (in money, weight or
bulk) required to accomplish a given function. It has so improved even over the
past decade that distributed processing (whereby a given system does its own
processing) may now be preferable to central data-handling. The advantages of
digital over analogue data handling and processing can be summarised as better
reliability, lower weight and volume, more relaxed power and cooling requirements,
greater flexibility for change or modification, and the vastly greater potential for
14 \
 Transition from thermionic valves to solid state

self-test. The introduction of microprocessors in the 1970s made it possible for

the benefits of digital technology to extend even to the smallest, fly-for-fun aero-
planes.
In that decade a revolution was also taking place in the presentation of infor-
mation to pilot and crew. The increasing complexity of high performance commer-
cial and military aircraft and the need for their efficient operation began to result
in such a flood of data that crews were becoming overworked, to the detriment
of safety and effectiveness. The answer lay in filtering information, perhaps adding
some form of automatic priority for different types of information, and presenting it
on television-like cathode-ray tubes (see Chapter Four). Military aircraft were the
first to benefit, the early displays being black and white. Apart from being able to
process the information into the form best suited to the mission, the other great
advantage lay in the huge savings now possible in valuable panel space. No longer
would a brake-pressure gauge take up permanently as much as nine square inches
for the sake of just a few seconds of reference at the beginning and end of each
flight. In future brake-pressure readings would form just one of many modes, the
CRT screen at other times being used for navigation, target characterisation, or
perhaps to display a hydraulic circuit diagram to help diagnosis of a fault in flight.
Commercial acceptance of the ‘glass cockpit’, as these multi-function CRT
flight-decks came to be called, arrived with the launch by Boeing in 1978 of its
Fig. 1.8 Boeing 757/767 twin-engined 767 airliner, closely followed by its smaller relation, the Boeing 757
prototypes Boeing (see Fig. 1.8). In these two airliners, virtually all flight-deck information is
Airplane Company presented to the crew on six rectangular-face screens: two for each of the two

ik RE aa ct
 The Evolution of Avionics

Fig. 1.9 Boeing 757/767 pilots showing navigation and attitude information, and two between them
Century 21 flight displaying engine or equipment data (Fig. 1.9). These so-called ‘new generation’
deck Boeing airliners have substantially digital electronics, and are the first of their kind. Their
Airplane Company
arrival heralded the demise of yet another crew member, the flight engineer.
The authority of airborne electronics took a leap forward in the early 1970s
when the US Air Force ordered two types of experimental fighter aircraft, not with
any idea of production but just to see how all of the then-developing technologies
could be brought together into a viable combat aircraft. One of the LWF (Light
Weight Fighter) prototypes was the General Dynamics YF-16, which broke totally
new ground by the way in which it married aerodynamics and electronics.
Designers had long recognised that aircraft could be made smaller and more
efficient if somehow they could be permitted to incorporate a degree of instability.
The more instability that could be allowed, the greater the benefits in weight, size,
manoeuvrability and thus cost. The problem is that, as aircraft are made progress-
ively less stable, the more difficult they are to handle. The handling difficulty
becomes too great for the pilot to manage long before the real benefits begin to
emerge. The answer is to incorporate an advanced autopilot (more accurately,
flight control system) that could insulate the pilot from the dangerous ‘raw’ hand-
ling characteristics, replacing them with computer-designed synthetic ones (see
Chapter Five). The stumbling block, a largely psychological one, was that such a
16
 Transition from thermionic valves to solid state

system would have to operate with full authority from take-off to touchdown. The
failure rate would have to be extremely small (of the order of one complete failure
in ten million flying hours) because, by definition, such a failure would result in
the loss of the aircraft and, almost certainly, its pilot. The essential new ingredient
was a new technology known as fly-by-wire, or FBW. Instead of pilot commands
being transmitted to the aircraft controls by reassuringly solid mechanical rods and
tubes, they would now be sent in the form of electrical signals. At the same time,
flight control computers would ‘shape’ the commands, automatically comparing
them with the attitude of the aircraft to generate the desired flight-path.
Although previous aircraft had some degree of FBW (the remaining control
being provided by a safety system of mechanical linkages), the YF-16 was the first
aircraft to go all the way and dispense entirely with such safety features. By 1975
the costly Vietnam war was showing the need for a small but effective light fighter,
and the YF-16 was adopted, in production form, as the F-16. Today it has become
the best-selling Western fighter. Its original flight-control system, analogue in
nature, is already being replaced by a digital system. Whilst the F-16 is fairly
conventional in appearance, more advanced fighters being developed in Europe
and the Middle East exploit the benefits of FBW to a much greater degree by
the adoption of close-coupled, tail-first configurations. Meanwhile the first airliner
with an all-FBW flight-control system is in service and shows great promise: the
Airbus A320 had a greater initial order-book than any commercial aircraft before
it a year before first deliveries to the airlines.
All of these digital systems call for a huge effort on the part of their designers
to write complex instructions for the computer that are efficient in terms of speed
and use of capacity, but yet contain no hidden errors to surface, catastrophically,
in flight. The task of developing good software (as these instructions are called)
is a difficult one that has been badly under-estimated by many top-class companies.
For example, the flight-management system for the Boeing 767 was originally
estimated to call for 70 K (i.e. just over 70,000) words of memory and instruction.
During development the actual requirement was found to be nearly three times
that figure.
The requirement for interchangeability of equipment from different manufac-
turers called for industry-wide specifications in the 1950s and 1960s on such
things as box size, performance, accuracies and the characteristics of inputs and
outputs. These specifications were embodied in MIL-spec (for the military) and
ARINC (Aeronautical Radio Incorporated) documents and are now followed by
virtually all airframe and electronics companies (see Chapter Two).
For the future, and particularly for military aircraft which have to carry many
more systems than commercial transports but in a more confined space, the
emphasis is on system integration. It may be wasteful to have separate power
supplies for each system, for example. Likewise, despite the advantages of distrib-
uted processing already mentioned, a central computing facility may be judged more
efficient. Already this trend is noticeable, with individual systems beginning to lose
their identities. Thus a nav/attack suite formerly comprising a radar, Doppler,
inertial platform, UHF and VHF radio, central computer, weapons management
system, radar warning and countermeasures dispensing system, and head-up and
head-down displays. These have been thought of and developed as a suite of
sensors to measure range, position, attitude and receive and transmit signals
external to the aircraft; an overall computing facility; and a set of displays. It is
significant that, already, some manufacturers are specialising in sections and no
longer producing complete systems. Several manufacturers are, for instance,
17
 The Evolution ofAvionics

supplying Doppler sensors to measure groundspeed; with a standardised output

format, they can be used in conjunction with other manufacturers’ processing and
display equipment.
A very important advantage of digital systems is that some of the processing
power can be allocated to diagnostic, or self-test, functions (see Chapter Three).
This is an area that is rapidly growing in both military and commercial aircraft.
Earlier analogue systems were able to incorporate a limited amount of self-test
circuitry, but digital technology is required to really exploit this powerful new tool.
With self-test, the pilot can run through an automatic test procedure before take-
off that will signal any faults and provide extra confidence that the mission will
be a success. In flight, the system automatically runs through the test schedule
perhaps a hundred times a second, advising the pilot or crew of a failure and
perhaps reconfiguring a system so that the fault can by bypassed. The need for
rapid and automatic reconfiguration is notably urgent in the case of a FBW flight-
control system, in which a faulty channel has to be switched out before it can jeop-
ardise the safety of the aircraft; a typical pilot reaction, taking several seconds,
could be far too slow. Another great advantage of the self-check facility is that
it can isolate a fault to perhaps one box or one electronic card within a box, so
that the task of the maintenance engineer is greatly eased.
The move towards greater automation is being expedited by the huge, industry-
wide effort to produce a new generation of chips with substantially greater
performance; the first of these ‘superchips’ are now being incorporated into stan-
dard items of equipment for flight trials. Their advantage lies in their extremely
high processing speed, and so initial applications will be where this characteristic
is most needed, notably in keeping tabs on rapidly changing radar targets and to
detect the approach of hostile missiles and compute suitable evasive manoeuvres.
They will be far too expensive, initially at any rate, for applications in which speed
is merely a convenience.

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CHAPTER 2 SYSTEM DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
SIMON J. K. WALKER MBA

Mr Walker is an aviation consultant in a specialist company with offices in

Washington, London and Hong Kong.
Qualified as a commercial pilot he has worked for corporate flight departments
and airlines in the UK and was a Regional Technical Sales Manager for British
Aerospace Civil Division. He followed this post with one as Marketing Manager
for the Sperry Flight Systems Group of Honeywell.
Mr Walker has an honours degree in Economics and a Master’s Degree in
Business Administration.

THE ETHOS OF CIVIL AIRCRAFT SAFETY

Enshrined in the purpose of regulatory bodies such as the Civil Aviation Authority
and the Federal Aviation Administration lies the question of aircraft safety. This
underlying requirement is applied to all facets of the civil aircraft industry, from
performance testing of prototype aircraft and systems to operator procedures. The
same regulations and approach to equipment design and testing are applied to
system and component manufacturers as to the manufacturers of the total aircraft.
This section will examine the role of the regulatory bodies in determining the
standards for approval of avionics equipment. These include compliance with
detailed test procedures as laid out in the Radio Technical Commission for Aero-
nautics (RTCA) document DO-160B or the equivalent EUROCAE document ED
14B as well as the demonstration of compliance with fail-safe procedures for
specific elements of the avionics equipment. Whilst there are some variations
between different regulatory bodies, the principles applied are broadly similar, with
the different countries generally applying alternative values to the importance of
certain procedures or items of equipment.
The procedures and approval systems to be described refer to those adopted
by the European Authorities, specifically the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which
provided invaluable assistance in writing this section.

Equipment approval The regulatory authorities are generally charged with the legal responsibility of
ensuring, as far as is practicable, the safe operation of aircraft that fall within their
jurisdiction. For the Civil Aviation Authority, these responsibilities are stated in
the UK Air Navigation Order, covering design, construction and workmanship of
any equipment carried aboard an aircraft.
The control systems for approval of Airframe Parts and of Equipment, excluding
radios, are defined in the British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCAR) docu-
ment A3-3. The cornerstone of the approval system is the Declaration of Design
f

19
 System Design Considerations

and Performance (DDP). This is a declaration of performance to a specific design

standard of equipment and is produced by a signatory (organisation) approved by
the Civil Aviation Authority. The Authority does not countersign DDPs.
The system thus relies on the method of approving organisations in terms of
their design, manufacturing and quality control expertise, followed by an on-going
involvement by the regulatory body in determining continued airworthiness of
components and the competence of the approved organisation.
As in other fields that have different international bodies with similar aims, there
is a continuing programme designed to ease cross-border approvals. In Europe this
has manifested itself in the creation of the Joint Airworthiness Requirements
(JAR), formed from the national requirements of Belgium, France, Italy, the Neth-
erlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and West Germany. In addition, the
provisions of a Government to Government Bilateral Agreement allow for the
approval, by the CAA, of materials parts or appliances to the Federal Aviation
Administration’s Technical Standards Orders (TSO).

Design objectives The design objectives for the manufacturer and the design and performance
requirements of the regulatory authority are necessarily different in emphasis
although broadly similar in intent. For the former, the objectives from a system
point of view will include: the provision of required performance; acceptable levels
of availability and failure conditions; ease of use and maintenance. For the
regulator, the design must meet certain results in terms of safety, whilst leaving
the manufacturer free to design the system.
These requirements mean that the system, when operating without fault, must
perform its intended function under all operating conditions expected in service.
In addition, systems must be designed so that there is an inverse relationship
between the probability of the occurrence of a fault and the severity of its effect.
These issues will be discussed in more detail later. The requirements for avail-
ability of function can be achieved by the provision of multiple systems and standby
services, whilst the integrity of the system is ensured by the provision of appro-
priate monitoring devices, capable of detecting failures, and features that counter-
act the failure effect.
The performance standards of avionics equipment can be defined in relation
to a number of documents. For flight instruments and radios, specifications are
issued by the Civil Aviation Authority, the Federal Aviation Administration, ICAO,
EUROCAE, RTCA and the British Standards Institution.
Specifications for aircraft systems will be issued by the aircraft manufacturer,
following consultation with the engine, avionics and systems manufacturers.
Limitations as to use of any of the equipment carried may form part of the
Approved Flight Manual for the aircraft, as a component of the aircraft’s Certifi-
cate of Airworthiness.

System safety For investigation purposes, avionics systems can be grouped in one of two cat-
egories. The first includes those systems, the failure or loss of which may indirectly
affect safety. The second, those systems, the loss or failure of which has a direct
effect on safety.
A set of airworthiness objectives is required which can classify the possible
effects of failure conditions within aircraft systems according to the degree of
hazard inherent in each effect. The failure condition may result from a single
failure or a combination of failures.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s airworthiness objectives are summarised below.
20
 The ethos of ctvil aircraft safety

Effect Permitted Probability Range* Probability Classification

Minor Greater than | x 107° Frequent

ee LOTA to La 10¥ Reasonably probable
Major x 10 to 85S 10 Remote
Hazardous ea LOD otal: 20105; Extremely remote
Catastrophic Less than?’ l=<010-" Extremely improbable

*Per hour of flight

The Federal Aviation Administration adopts a similar approach, although the

boundaries between each of the elements vary.
The development of complex, inter-related systems means that the system as a
whole needs to be considered in order to meet the requirements of the Joint Air-
worthiness Requirements (JAR) 25.1309. This results in a method of safety
assessment to identify and analyse critical failure modes in order to demonstrate
compliance with the airworthiness objectives.

The system safety The objectives of the system safety assessment take the form of a statement listing
assessment the possible effects that the system can produce, together with a probability classi-
fication for each effect. In some cases, only part of a system may require the
application of this safety system technique.
Once any potentially hazardous or catastrophic effects have been identified, it
is necessary to identify the conditions which will produce these effects. Examples
of hazardous effects include hazardously misleading information on the attitude
displays, or a hardover condition beyond limits on the autopilot. Catastrophic
effects would include the loss of all displays on the attitude displays, or the loss
of glide-slope guidance, without warning, during a Cat III autoland.
An analysis must be performed to identify all failure conditions beyond those
assumed to have only minor effects. Critical functions may well require further
analysis using numerical and statistical techniques based on evidence relevant to
the components used.
The increasing use of digital systems has increased the difficulty in this area
of failure analysis for two main reasons. First, the shared use of large areas of
circuitry and central processing may result in the widespread failure of multiple
functions. Second, as software does not fail in the conventional analogue sense
of the word, its failure modes cannot be analysed using conventional techniques.
Extensive use of monitors and a dedicated software design process can result
in the necessary assurance that the quality of these systems meets the safety
objectives of the system.
Environmental factors also play a large role in system design. These disciplines,
covering climatic conditions, shock, vibration, electromagnetic compatibility,
internal and external electromagnetic interference and lightning strikes, for
example, require comprehensive and stringent tests to be performed on equipment.
Under laboratory conditions the tests stress the equipment over a range of
environments to ensure that it will perform under any likely environment in actual
service.
The test standards vary with the use to which the equipment will be put. The
Federal Aviation Administration, for example, differentiates between pressurised
and non-pressurised aircraft, the height and speeds that the aircraft will operate
and size of aircraft, among other variables.
21
 System Design Considerations

Performance analysis A method of performance analysis involves the establishment of a statistical distri-
bution for each critical performance parameter, and then determination of the
probability that the performance of the system, will be such as to create a hazard.
Simulations are normally performed to collect data, followed by flight testing to
support the results of the simulation. The outcome of this performance analysis
should allow for the establishment of system limitations, flight crew procedures and
maintenance issues as well as minimum equipment lists for flight dispatch.
The architecture of a system must be designed to ensure that failures do not
affect both control and monitoring functions. This is accomplished by segregation
of vital components so that a single external failure source does not result in
multiple system failures. Physical and environmental causes can be eliminated by
the use of separate locations for duplicated equipments. Similarly, electrical power
supplies, increasingly utilising digital data-buses, must demonstrate that inter-
rupted supply to one bus does not affect the continued operation of systems
supplied from another bus.
The certification of many modern systems requires the verification of software
code. Although not certified themselves, software modifications will be subject to
the same control as other modifications. The principles of design and control
procedures for software are addressed in the EUROCAE/RTCA documents ED-
12A/DO-178A ‘Software Consideration in Airborne Equipment and System Certi-
fication’. :
Software integrity can be improved by a number of methods, including extensive
testing and analysis of system design. One method that is used with increasing
frequency is that of software ‘dissimilarity’. By this method, two types of processing
are performed by the system, and the results compared prior to activation of the
signal sent. Alternatively, it is feasible to use the same software and perform a
comparative check by the use of dissimilar processors. The symbol generator on
the McDonnell Douglas MD80 family (EFIS equipped) utilises this second
approach for certain critical areas.

Certification task A summary of the certification task, some of which was described above is as
follows:

(a) investigate and approve the equipment;

(b) investigate and approve the manner of installation;
(c) agree the system design;
(d) agree the software design and standards;
(e) demonstrate compliance;
(f) agree limitations and procedures;
(g) agree maintenance requirements;
(h) agree minimum equipment for dispatch;
(i) monitor in service.

ARINC SPECIFICATIONS

Background Throughout this book reference is made to ARINC characteristics or specifi-

cations. These represent the activities of a group established to ensure compatibility
between avionics equipment suppliers to the commercial air transport world. The
following foreword appears with each release of an ARINC specification, and is
reproduced in full, so as to adequately acknowledge the extent of that corpor-
ation’s work.
 ARINC specifications

Aeronautical Radio Inc., is a corporation in which the United States airlines

are the principal stockholders. Other stockholders include a variety of other air
transport companies, aircraft manufacturers and foreign flag carriers.
Activities of ARINC include the operation of an extensive system of domestic
and overseas aeronautical land radio stations, the fulfilment of systems
requirements to accomplish ground and air compatibility, the allocation and
assignment of frequencies to meet these needs, the coordination incident to
standard airborne communications and electronics systems and the exchange of
technical information. ARINC sponsors the Airlines Electronic Engineering
Committee (AEEC), composed of airline technical personnel. The AEEC
formulates standards for electronic equipment and systems for the airlines. The
establishment of equipment characteristics is a principal function of this
Committee.
An ARINC equipment characteristic is finalized after investigation and
coordination with the airlines who have a requirement or anticipate a
requirement, with other aircraft operators, with the military services having similar
requirements, and with the equipment manufacturers. It is released as an ARINC
equipment characteristic only when the interested parties are in general
agreement. Such a release does not commit any airline or ARINC to purchase
equipment so described nor does it establish or indicate recognition of the
existence of an operational requirement for such equipment, nor does it
constitute endorsement of any manufacturer’s product designed or built to meet
the characteristic. An ARINC characteristic has a twofold purpose, which is:

(1) To indicate to the prospective manufacturers of airline electronic equipment

the considered opinion of the airline technical people, coordinated on an
industry basis, concerning requisites of new equipment, and
(2) To channel new equipment designs in a direction which can result in the
maximum possible standardization of those physical and electrical
characteristics which influence interchangeability of equipment without
seriously hampering engineering initiative.

As is implied from the statement of activities, an ARINC specification or charac-

teristic is defined by reference to the end user’s needs within the constraints of
the equipment manufacturer to provide it at a cost that is acceptable to both. There
is no regulatory pressure to produce particular design or size specifications.
The AEEC is concerned with standards of equipment and airborne systems,
in particular where they affect operational maintenance and engineering functions
within the industry. In this respect, the references to ARINC that were made
previously, are, in many ways, too limiting. Avionics equipment is often regarded
as the only area of involvement. However, the detailed requirements of supplier
and purchaser go far beyond. Two main areas of interest are the size of box for
each item of equipment plus its associated racking and the cooling required for
the equipment.
From the aircraft manufacturer’s viewpoint, as the overall co-ordinator of
design, these detailed specifications are a crucial element in determining size of
the avionics bay as well as space and air supply around instruments. This in turn
will affect the economics of a particular aircraft and also have a bearing on emerg-
ency power supply, as a function of the aircraft’s primary role — long or short
distance, number of engines/generators for example.

Air transport racking (ATR) It is clearly of interest to the airlines and, to a lesser extent, the military community,
to have as high a degree of commonality, and hence competition among suppliers
23
System Design Considerations

as possible. As such, the assembly arrangements, connections and overall dimen-

sions of airborne avionics components must be standardised in the interests of
airline capital commitment whilst the minimum stowage space for the equipment
must be achieved. In this way maximum customer choice is facilitated.
The extensive experience of manufacturers in recent years and the continuing
quest for more powerful and smaller chips and computers have enabled aircraft
builders to allocate less space for avionics bays, whilst preserving capabilities.
The main advantages of standard box sizes are in the area of navigation and
communication equipment, specifically transmitter and receiver components. Here
the airlines have a competitive choice between the major suppliers, with decisions
based on their own assessment of the desirability of a particular supplier. Similarly,
aircraft manufacturers will specify a maximum size of box for specific components.
An example would be the Symbol Generator element of an Electronic Flight
Instrument System, where the SG must not exceed ATR — a measure of box size.
Historically, the origins of standardisation of box sizes can be traced to the late
1930s, when United Airlines and ARINC established an industry standard racking
system which was called the Air Transport Radio (ATR) unit case. ARINC speci-
fication number 11 identified three sizes of ATR cases: full ATR, ATR and
13 ATR, all with the same height and length. At the same time, common types of
connector pins were established at the rear of the boxes for wiring connections.
The use of common sizes of unit cases and standardised racking systems has also
resulted in reduction of damage to the connector pins due to misalignment of the
connectors.
The United States military authorities adopted the basic features of the ARINC
specification, but amended it to allow for variation in height and length as well.
This was referred to as the JAN Specification C-172.
Similarly in Britain, ideas on standardisation were adopted, although these
differed considerably from the United States system. The British system allowed
for greater freedom in the choice of widths, with variations of one inch between
each size. Various lengths were catered for, as well as offering much taller boxes
than the US alternatives.
This polarisation of views meant that, for practical purposes, American manu-
facturers would produce equipment for American aircraft manufacturers using the
ATR system, whilst the British manufacturers would do precisely the same, but
for different end users. This undoubtedly contributed to the relative lack of
success of some British designs in the 1950s and 1960s.
Current thinking among airline maintenance personnel is directed towards a box
design standardised to the point where the only variable is width. However, this
must not preclude the availability of particular suppliers or a reduction in reliability
for this reason alone. At the present moment, the ATR design is fixed in height
at 7% inches. In addition, the ‘short’ and ‘long’ alternatives in case length are
only applied to particular sizes of box. For example, the 4 ATR is the only box
size that has the ‘short’ option.
ARINC Specification 404 was established to clarify the remaining variables in
box size in order that there could be true interchangeability between suppliers.
These last areas concerned dimensions on the boxes for the position of connectors
and cooling ducts, all measured in a particular way.
The outcome of that specification was that several new case sizes were estab-
lished, such as the short and long + ATR, short and long ? ATR and the short
and long § ATR. New Cannon DPA connectors were specified, as well as the
 Redundancy

option of specifying connector pin indices that would preclude the fitting of the
wrong box in a particular rack position.
An approach that is gathering momentum is derived from a European standard,
now being adopted by the United States avionics manufacturers. This specifies
box sizes in terms of MCU. An 8 MCU box is virtually equivalent to the ATR
size, with the range of options being from 1 through 8 MCU, all with the same
height and length, with Cannon DPX-type connectors dimensionally specified.
The trend now is to reduce the space required for specific avionic requirements,
often combining previously separate devices. One example of this is the ADIRS
for the Airbus A320. This combines the inertial reference system (IRS) with the
air data computer (ADC), all in the space previously required for the inertial
system. This has had the effect of reducing the total space required in the avionics
bay by two 4 MCU air data computers.
It may be that this trend towards standardisation, probably now at a stage where
further development is unproductive, is beginning to be of less importance, for two
reasons. The first relates to the reducing size of components as discussed earlier,
although there are still many merits in adopting certain standard features. The
second is that aircraft are becoming more and more identified with a single
supplier from the early certification phase of the aircraft’s development. For
example, a significant proportion of the ATR 42 and 72 from the avionics point
of view is identified with Honeywell-Sperry products. To an even greater extent,
the McDonnell Douglas MD 11 wide-body transport has Honeywell-Sperry as
systems integrator. Radio navigation and communication options will remain avail-
able, but will be of reducing importance in the total package.

REDUNDANCY

The development of smaller-sized avionics equipment plus the increased use of

digital data-buses has led to dramatic improvements in the levels of redundancy
that a modern airliner offers. An increasingly competitive environment, with high
frequency, short turn-round operations characterising much of the air transport
industry, has led to a requirement for ever-improving dispatch reliability. This can
be achieved either by improving the reliability of individual components, or by
increasing the levels of redundancy of the components on board the aircraft. This
will result in discrete parts of the system being capable of backing up failed units.
An increasingly common method of improving the redundancy level of an aircraft
system is to provide a component with a higher level of capability than is normally
used. An example of this would be the use of a common symbol generator aboard
an aircraft, with a fifth, identical unit driving a map display when systems operation
is normal. This map display, for example, the multi-function display (MFD) on a
BAe 125 business jet, is not a required component for normal flight. If a primary
symbol generator or display unit were to fail, this additional unit could provide
back-up, allowing continued operation of the aircraft until such time as the
operator was at a suitable repair station.
For components that are a vital part of the operating system, a “pare unit can
be carried aboard the aircraft. This can be either a ‘hot’ spare or ‘cold’ spare — the
former is connected to the data bus, ready to be operational in the event of
component failure, the latter method would require engineering assistance to bring
it on line, but would usually be a swift operation, minimising aircraft downtime.
As implied earlier, this trend is more prevalent in situations where the engin-
4

25
 System Design Considerations

eering infra-structure is less developed. This can be due to a number of factors,

such as remoteness of the airport being served, inexperience of local engineering
staff, where the operator is reluctant to allow any maintenance beyond turn-round
checks to be performed, or if the financial environment in which the airline is
operating precludes large overheads in the form of additional engineering staff.
The outcome of these problems requires a measure of collaboration between
supplier and end user so that the problems can be identified and suitable steps
taken to minimise the inconvenience to airline and passengers.

RELIABILITY

Equipment reliability is an area that has received considerable attention over the
years. Improvements in capability of system design have been impressive, but,
without reliable components, the benefits are of little consequence. A previous
section discussed the concept of redundancy in systems; here the question of
reducing failure repetitions is addressed.
Two measures of equipment reliability are generally used, both related, but
dependent on factors that differ. The most often used is that of mean time between
failures (MTBF), a statistical analysis of component failure, either of the whole
device as far as the airline is concerned, or at part level for the manufacturer or
maintenance organisation. The second term is mean time between unscheduled
removals (MTBUR). This refers to the number of times that a component is
removed from the aircraft on the ground of suspected failure, irrespective of
whether it has been subsequently proved to have failed.
Equipment guarantees are generally written around MTBF figures, although
many airlines attempt to have the MTBUR statistic used, as there are clearly more
removals under this measure. From the manufacturer’s viewpoint, there is little or
no control of an airline’s maintenance policy; without adequate safeguards against
the removal of components for expediency, the costs of warranties would escalate
to an unacceptable level.
Reliability statistics and experience form an important element in the con-
sideration of life-cycle costs for equipment. This refers to the total cost of owning
and operating the aircraft, or its associated subsystems. Initial costs, capital
and finance charges, overhaul costs, routine maintenance, unscheduled mainten-
ance and repair, and labour costs in removing components are all part of the
equation of life-cycle costs. Developments in avionics have generally led to an
increase in ownership costs when compared with the earlier designs — electro-
mechanical instruments compared with EFIS being a prime example. However, the
improved reliability and reduced overhaul costs often mean that the true cost to
an airline over the planned use of the aircraft in its fleet will be lower for the
developed systems. Electronic components are currently demonstrating improve-
ments in reliability in excess of twice that of the earlier electro-mechanical devices,
whilst ring laser gyro technology offers reliability figures many times that of the
devices replaced. In both cases, this is a result of removing the weakest link in
the system, usually a mechanical device.
Because of these improvements, warranty periods offered by the manufacturers
have been steadily increasing. From an early start of six months, a figure of two
years is now the industry standard, with three and sometimes more years offered
on some equipment. Competitive pressure and airline demands have assisted this
change, but the manufacturers have responded with better products.

26
 Built-in test equipment (BITE)

BUILT-IN TEST EQUIPMENT (BITE)

Built-in test systems are an integral component of modern avionics design. They
are designed to provide maintenance assistance to confirm pilot-generated fault
reports (PIREPS) and to improve the accuracy of identification of a failed
component and its subsequent test after rectification and re-installation. The
BITE is designed to provide a continuous, integrated monitoring system, both in
flight and on the ground, available to maintenance personnel whenever power is
applied to the aircraft.
Most modern aircraft use cockpit displays and avionics bay read-outs to provide
access to the BITE generated data which is retained in the non-volatile memory
of the aircraft computer system. This facilitates post-flight confirmation as well as
storage of flight segment data which is useful for further analysis after return to
the main engineering base. Digital technology has undoubtedly increased the
potential of BITE concepts to give greater diagnostic capability.
The design objectives of an integrated BITE system include: a desire to
minimise on-aircraft maintenance time; a reduction in the removal rates of uncon-
firmed failed units; facilitation of identification of failed units and their associated
interfaces. These goals have become more important as aircraft systems become
more complex, with an associated reduction in line maintenance technicians’ ability
to carry out rapid repairs. Also, the trend away from airline employed engineering
staff remote from the main base, particularly in North America, has reduced the
line station capability still further. Lastly, the increased cost of line replaceable
units (LRUs) has made the provisioning of line stations too expensive for many
airlines, particularly if the faults reported and the remedial action taken do not
result in the fault being cleared. BITE can help provide the base engineers with
an early warning of which systems have failed, once the line engineer has identified
the fault using the system’s own diagnostic capability.
To explain the capabilities of the BITE concept, a system in use on the digital
flight control system of a modern jet will be used as an example.
BITE system design conforms to certain guidelines established by the designer,
in association with airline and aircraft manufacturer representatives. These will
generally cover the scope of the detection capability. Clearly, it is important that
a significant percentage of faults is correctly identified and isolated. Most systems
aim for a figure of 95 per cent of all steady state faults being so identified. Once
reported by the crew, it is important, within the terms of reference of the BITE
concept, to isolate the fault expeditiously. This will require simple operating tech-
niques for the average line-maintenance technician, with faults displayed in alpha-
numeric symbols rather than codes that require reference to a maintenance manual.
As far as possible, all diagnostic checking should be performable by a single
maintenance engineer. Some checks, particularly those that will involve assessing
external control surface movement, will require more than one engineer, especially
if specific ground support test equipment is required. The BITE system should
also be capable of performing a full functional test of all components, particularly
after the replacement of an LRU, in order that the aircraft can be cleared for
continued operation.
Maintenance assistance functions are provided at various levels to simplify the
requirements of everyday flight operations. The major areas are ground mainten-
ance BITE and continuous monitoring during power-up procedures (including
periodic checks, and maintenance monitoring).
Ground maintenance BITE is designed to provide an on-ground readout of the
/

27
 System Design Considerations

data stored in the non-volatile memory plus the ability to perform isolation and
verification checks and functional tests whilst the aircraft is on the ground.
Continuous monitoring, including during power-up procedures, monitors the
health of the system, on a continuous basis, as implied. The maintenance moni-
toring function covers isolation of any system malfunction and the subsequent
storage of that information in the non-volatile memory.
As such, the cycle of events can be considered in four phases — two in flight
and two on the ground. Initially, the system is operating as designed, and is
verified as such. A malfunction occurs, stored in memory and reported by the
operating crew. The ground phases then involve the fault isolation, down to
individual LRU level, followed by removal and replacement of the faulty unit. The
last phase involves verification of correct function.
The differing requirements of maintertance engineers in particular phases of a
system’s operation dictate differing levels of capability for the BITE system. Much
of the discussion above has studied the requirements of the line maintenance tech-
nician, involved in rapid fault isolation in order that the aircraft can continue on
schedule. However, there are other levels possible, for example, when an aircraft
does not have the demands of an immediate schedule, such as on an overnight stop
at the main base. Also, some investigative capability by specialist engineers into
specific, often intermittent, malfunctions can be provided.
The first capability level will have the ability to test current status of all systems,
confirm in-flight faults for both LRUs and their interfaces and to verify any
corrective action. This implies a limit to their capability of addressing the question
of Go or No-Go decisions.
Overnight maintenance can provide the facilities of test rigs and functional test
capabilities. Readout measurements from the sensors, both static and dynamic are
possible, all without the need to remove the faulty unit from the aircraft.
Investigative engineering capability allows for readout of individual test results.
Memory interrogation techniques allow access to the programming inherent in the
system as well as triggering fault history of intermittent failures. Typically, the unit
will be off the aircraft and on a test bench, with outputs from the BITE in some
form of high-level computer language, contrasting vividly with the ‘plain English’
type of readout provided to the line maintenance technician.
Aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and McDonnell Douglas MD11 have had
extensive BITE systems designed into them. To provide effective troubleshooting,
some form of centralised fault display system is an integral part of the cockpit.
Engineering data will be available via a multi-function control and display unit,
so called because it acts in other roles at various phases of the flight. The access
will be provided by the use of keys built into the unit, and by comprehensive menu-
driven instructions that appear on the screen in response to commands and
prompts.
BITE techniques are extensively used during the development phases of aircraft
to assist the flight test programme in assessing the effects of flight procedures on
avionics equipment. In service use the concept helps reduce delays by accurately
identifying failed components to a level whereby remedial action can be taken by
line maintenance personnel, improving dispatch reliability, with the obvious effect
on passenger acceptability and hence, ultimately, the profitability of the airline.
BITE reduces the unnecessary removal of unconfirmed, but suspect components,
thus reducing cost as repair organisations will still make a charge for labour, even
if no fault is found. It also has the result of reducing the necessary spares inven-
tory as an additional benefit of reducing faulty diagnosis.
28 7
 Automatic test equipment (ATE)

It can be expected that, as digital systems become more common on aircraft, more
extensive use of BITE will be introduced, combining all subsystems, to provide
continuous monitoring, helping improve reliability as well as providing early
warning of malfunction, with a consequent improvement in aircraft safety.
Whilst of significant benefit to engineering personnel, particularly in a commer-
cial airline, the use of BITE requires additional computing power and memory
which adds weight and complexity and, inevitably, affects levels of overall re-
liability. It is essential that a higher level of reliability is achieved in the test equip-
ment than in the systems under test. On military aircraft the computer capacity
required may be as high as 15 per cent of the total requirement.

AUTOMATIC TEST EQUIPMENT (ATE)

The increasing complexity of modern avionics equipment with the new techniques
of printed circuit boards, surface mount technology and computer generated data
has led to the development of substantial test fixture requirements. These are
generally produced by the avionics manufacturers themselves, for use in their own
repair facilities as well as for sale to those organisations large enough to justify
the cost of the equipment as well as the training and spares inventory required.
ARINC characteristics now specify the requirements for each of the devices
produced to provide the facilities for test equipment interface, suitably protected
when in normal aircraft use.
Automatic test equipment is designed to perform a number of roles. One of the
simplest is to confirm a fault that is believed to exist, either generated by a pilot
report or following normal maintenance procedures. These test fixtures can be
considered as ‘filtering’ devices, often designed to prevent unwarranted flagging
of a unit as faulty. Many airlines will choose to acquire one of these devices as
a means of controlling the warranty procedure, and to avoid sending expensive
components abroad.
The second type of fixture involves the diagnosis of faults, leading to their
rectification by reference to maintenance manuals and techniques, followed by
verification of correct function prior to re-installation in the aircraft. Modern
design for these units involves the modular concept, whereby facilities can be
added as the requirements develop, keeping costs under control, and allowing for
purchases to take place in different budget periods. One such device is the
Honeywell STS 1000, which is designed to provide test facilities for the whole
range of Honeywell products on, for example, the MD11, plus most digital equip-
ment for other types of aircraft, such as the EFIS on the Fokker F50, EFIS and
AFCS on the ATR42/72.
Increasing reliability of components, the multitude of parts plus the problems
of initial and recurrent training, with the problems of experience build-up, make
the use of full test equipment fixtures less viable to most airlines. The size of fleet
required, added to the technical skills available to the engineering department
mean that the trend is more towards the provision of strategically placed overhaul
and repair stations, often run by the manufacturers to service the needs of the
region’s airlines. Specialist maintenance organisations are springing up to offer
services to airlines that feel unhappy about the cost structures of some manufac-
turers and the inherent control that exists as one company sells and maintains the
equipment.
 System Design Considerations

BIBLIOGRAPHY

British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCAR)

Chapter A3-3 Airframe Parts and Equipment
Chapter A3—4 Radio Apparatus
Chapter A3-5 Aircraft Radio Installations
Chapter A6-5 Specifications — Instruments, Equipment and Accessories
Chapter D1-3 Safety Assessment of Systems

RTCA/EUROCAE
DO 160/ED14B Environmental Standards
DO 178A/ED12A Software Considerations

Joint Airworthiness Requirements .

Sub-Part C - Structure JAR 25.581
Sub-Part F — Equipment JAR 25.1301
JAR 25.1303
JAR 25.1309
JAR 25.1321-1337
ARINC documentation.
RTCA document DO-160.
FAA: Certification Procedures for Products and Parts Maintenance Assist Functions
paper — G.F. Ellis and H. E. Hofferber Engineering Bulletins and Training Data
for the Honeywell and Sperry Corporations. :

é
ras! re Tiee w R

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: hepa GER MPV othe wr ps ~ an oe ito 7 ° 5 get? ~~ Pate) oo

meaty, aie ae! priate ated teriiie ww wasp sem cea” ot co Unga shiney,
Sci rietome 40 exvegral. rr [Link], >
CHAPTER 3 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
IAN MOIR BSc, CEng, MIEE, MRAeS

Senior Multiplexing Systems Engineer Smiths Industries. Mr Moir undertook his

graduate training as an Engineering Officer in the Royal Air Force being awarded
a BSc (Eng) 2nd Class Honours Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Service in
the Far East was followed by responsibility, at RAF Brize Norton, for first line
servicing of VC 10 and Belfast aircraft.
In 1970, in the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he took a post-graduate Course at
RAF College, Cranwell, having already been awarded an Air Training Corps
Flying Scholarship and the de Havilland Flying Trophy for the best pilot in
RAF Officer Cadet Entry (1965).
In 1972 he joined the RAF Project Team with responsibility for the digital
avionics system of the MRCA (Tornado) at British Aircraft Corporation (later
BAe) at Warton.
In the rank of Squadron Leader Mr Moir served at the Government
Communication Headquarters, Cheltenham, was Officer Commanding, Electronic
Engineering Squadron, RAF Leuchars and the Ministry of Defence (Air)
Directorate of Tornado Engineering and Supply.
In 1980 he joined Smiths Industries, becoming involved in systems integration
using MIL-STD-1533B data bus hardware on the BAe Experimental Aircraft
Programme. From 1984 he has been Group Leader of the Utilities Systems
Management Group.
Mr Moir has presented many Technical Papers at home and abroad and
written a number of Technical Articles. In 1979 he was awarded the RAF Strike
Command Smallwood Trophy for a submission on Electronic Warfare. He is a
Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Chartered Engineer and a Member
of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

For many years the application of electronics to airborne systems was limited to
analogue devices and systems with signal levels and voltages generally being
related in some linear or predictive way. This type of system was usually prone
to heat soak, drift and other non-linearities. The principles of digital computing
had been understood for a number of years before the techniques were applied
to aircraft. The development of thermionic valves enabled digital computing to be
accomplished but at the expense of vast amounts of hardware. During the Second
World War a code-breaking machine called Colossus employed thermionic valves
on a large scale. The machine was physically enormous and quite impracticable
for use in any airborne application.
The first aircraft developed in the UK intended to use digital techniques on
any meaningful scale was the ill-fated TSR 2 (Fig. 3.1) which was cancelled in
1965. The technology employed in the TSR 2 was largely based upon solid state
transistors, then in comparative infancy. It was not until the development of the
Anglo-French Jaguar and Hawker Siddeley Nimrod in the 1960s that weapon
31
 Digital Technology

Fig. 3.1 British Aircraft Corporation TSR 2 tactical/strike/reconnaissance bomber was a proposed replacement for
the Canberra medium bomber. The first of nine development aircraft was first flown by W/Cdr Roland
Beamont in 1964. TSR 2 was the first European aircraft to embody digital technology. It had an advanced
attack radar with automatic terrain-following modes, an automatic flight-control system, head-up display,
mixed Doppler/inertial navigation system and sideways looking reconnaissance radar. The project was
cancelled for political reasons later in 1964 British Aerospace, Warton

systems began seriously to embody digital computing, but on a meagre scale

compared with the 1980s.
From that point, the application of digital techniques rapidly spread throughout
many of the systems on the aircraft and it is now virtually impossible to find
subsystems which do not utilise digital technology in one form or another. Tran-
sistors have given way to Integrated Circuits (ICs) where a number of gates could
be integrated and packaged in one chip or IC. The integration of 10 to 100 tran-
sistors in a single chip is termed Small Scale Integration (SSI). This trend of
integrating more devices in a single chip has accelerated rapidly over the past two
decades to the point where Very High Performance Integrated Circuits (VHPIC)
are embodying in the order of 10° to 10° transistors per chip. In the US similar
developments are called Very High Speed Integrated Circuits [VHSIC]. The
increasing scale of integration and speed of integration are largely due to the
shrinking geometry of the transistors and inter-connecting tracks which comprise
the IC. Present geometries are of the order of 1 micron resolution (1 micron is
10~° or one millionth of a metre or 0.04 thousandths of an inch) which is why
32 ‘
 Microprocessors
Fig. 3.2 Integrated circuit
development Royal Circuit Integration Level
Aeronautical Society Ue +

Very High Performance

(VHPIC)
|
Very Large Scale
(VLSI)
il
Large
(LSI)
10° |
Medium Scale
Transistors/Chip
(MSI)

Smail Scale A factor of one hundred

(SSI) thousand in two decades

1970 1980 1990

Year

so many may be embodied upon an IC chip perhaps 0.3 inch square. See Fig. 3.2
for a comparison of IC development.!
The enormous increase in component densities which has been achieved has
not only reduced the space required for the equipment but also increased the
speed of operation. The measure of how quickly a device can switch on or off
is referred to as gate delay. The gate delay of a typical thermionic valve is of the
order of 1000 nanoseconds (1 nanosecond is 10~? or one thousandth of a millionth
of a second). Transistors are around 10 times faster at 100 nanoseconds; Silicon
chips faster again at around 1 nanosecond. Gallium Arsenide chips are being
developed to be at least ten times faster than silicon chips.
Another of the areas of revolution relates to power consumption. ICs consume
minute amounts of power. Consumption is related to the technology type and the
speed of operation. The quicker the speed of operation then the greater the power
required and vice-versa. A comparison of some of the main types of modern tech-
nology together with their respective gate delay and power dissipation is given in
Fig. 3.3.
There are four main areas where the development of digital technology and
related disciplines have led to their application in modern avionic systems. These
areas which will be examined in the remainder of this chapter are: Micropro-
cessors, Memory devices, Data buses, Software development methodologies.

MICROPROCESSORS
The advent of cheap and effective processors, termed microprocessors, had a
marked effect on the application of digital computing to aircraft avionic systems.
In 1971 the INTEL Corporation introduced a 4-bit microprocessor called the
INTEL 4004 as the first single chip microprocessor. In fact 4 or 5 additional
support chips were required to form a viable processor system. Shortly afterwards,
INTEL introduced the 8-bit INTEL 8008. By 1974 these had been developed
to the INTEL 4040 and 8080 processors. A portion of the design team from
INTEL split off to form the ZILOG Corporation which introduced the 8-bit Z80
microprocessor. Many other manufacturers produced their own microprocessors
of comparable performance and the industry soon became very competitive, though
not always with the best outcome for the user.
33
 Digital Technology

Fig. 3.3 Comparison of

performance and
power dissipation for
various semi-
conductor
technologies

100

Gate
delay10

1 10 100 1 10 00M 10 100

nw HW Power =™W
Semiconductor Technologies:
ante Transistor—transistor logic
ECL Emitter-coupled logic
HL Integrated-injection logic
CDI Collector-diffused isolation logic
MOS __ Metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor logic
CMOS Complementary MOS

For aircraft applications the 8-bit family of microprocessors was favoured as,
with a few specialised exceptions, its accuracy was more meaningful when applied
to aircraft systems. For a number of years throughout the mid-1970s a range of
8-bit microprocessors were used in many equipments being designed at the time.
The availability of competing devices led to a proliferation of microprocessor
implementations and accompanying software languages. The ultimate customer —
and in particular the US Air Force — began to inherit an inventory of equipment
with a wide range of microprocessor implementations and software support. This
very soon reached the stage where the logistics, and particularly the modification
of equipment in service, became a nightmare. It was to lead to standardisation
initiatives — both hardware and software — which will be described later.
By 1977 first generation 16-bit microprocessors became available in volume
production. The most generally used of these microprocessors were the Ferranti
F100, INTEL 8086, Moterola 68000, Texas Instruments 9900 and ZILOG
Z8000. At one time the Ferranti F100 was the preferred microprocessor for use
in UK Ministry of Defence applications. Most equipments designed in the UK
within the last five years are likely to use one of these microprocessors or a variant
thereof. However the number of options available within each manufacturer’s
product range, as well as a general lack of compatibility between the programming
languages (assembly language) used by the various microprocessors, still lead to
incompatibilities. However the more widespread availability of High-level Operating
Languages (HOLs) and the associated software development toolsets is beginning
to offer some hope of rationalisation, as will be outlined later.
In the mid to late 1980s, further developments, particularly in the INTEL,
Motorola, and ZILOG ranges, led to 32-bit microprocessors becoming available.
While there are computational tasks in avionic systems which require 32-bit
accuracy, in most cases 16-bit capabilities suffice.
 Memory devices

Following the adverse experiences of its initial ownership of microprocessor-

based systems, the US Air Force has pressed strong standardisation initiatives.
‘The microprocessor was standardised upon the MIL-STD-1750A with a stan-
dardised Instruction Set Architecture (ISA); this is the widely used standard
processor now specified for 16-bit operation and in time may also find 32-bit use.
As well as the US Air Force, the US Navy and US Army are beginning to accept
the standard. Furthermore, manufacturers in Europe are having to take increasing
account of MIL-S’D-1750A. Among manufacturers in general there are reser-
vations about 1750A and it is sometimes criticised as an overkill, in many cases
resulting in overspecification and overdesign. There is little doubt that at the
moment it is expensive, with certain 1750A chip sets being almost ten times the
cost of the contemporary ‘commercial’ microprocessor. ‘Time alone will tell if this
situation will continue.

MEMORY DEVICES

Many computer or microprocessor implementations may possess an inherent small

amount of memory in the design. However additional memory will need to be added
in order that the processor may discharge its allotted tasks. Memory is available
in various forms, not all of which are suitable for incorporation in avionic systems.
One form of memory used is for the location of program storage. That is memory
where program algorithms, routines, data banks and look-up tables, etc., are
located. Program storage will usually be implemented using some form of non-
volatile memory: the program is read-only and cannot be written to during
normal operation though clearly it has to be programmable. Furthermore, the
memory will be such that loss of power — due to an equipment power-down or
power-interrupt — does not cause loss of the program. It is desirable that these
program storage areas are re-programmable when the aircraft is on the ground;
in some cases re-programming may necessitate removing the equipment from the
aircraft.
The program working area is that area of memory where read-from and write-
to operations occur during the normal execution of the processor software. This
area of working memory is sometimes referred to as ‘scratch pad’ memory.
The memory types used today in aircraft avionic systems to satisfy these basic
requirements are largely based upon three technologies: core memory, semicon-
ductor memory and bubble memory.
Core memory consists of a 3-dimensional array of minute ferrite cores which
may exist in one of two magnetised states and which may be used to represent the
presence or otherwise of a bit of information. In early implementations, four wires —
would pass through the centre of each core: two selection wires associated
with X and Y grids for identification, a sense wire and an inhibit wire. Later
developments use a three-wire system where the sense/inhibit functions are com-
bined. =
The advantages of core memory are that it is extremely rugged and is capable
of surviving the most demanding environnents. It is however heavy compared with
other memory types; clearly the ferrite cores are not light. It has historically also
been more demanding in terms of power consumption and has a slower access time
than semiconductor memory. It does have the additional advantage that the oper-
ational program can be changed by means of a Program Loading Unit (PLU)
at the aircraft without having to remove the unit in question. For this reason core
has been the preferred memory type for program storage of main mission/weapon
 Digital Technology

aiming computers such as those used on the Jaguar, Tornado and the Sea Harrier
HUDWAC.
Semiconductor memory is presently widely used in two forms with a third finding
increased use. Semiconductor memory is implemented in ICs or chips as described
earlier.
Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) is the semiconductor
equivalent to core; that is a read-only memory used for program storage. ‘The
disadvantage of EPROM is that for re-programming it has to be removed from the
equipment which in turn necessitates removing the equipment from the aircraft.
The memory card containing the EPROM is removed and the memory devices are
erased by irradiation with an ultra-violet (UV) light source. The memory devices
may then be re-programmed, re-validated and the unit checked and re-installed
in the aircraft. This is a cumbersome and time-consuming process and EPROM
has tended to be used for those applications where the operational programs
are not liable to frequent modification.
Random Access Memory (RAM) is the read-write memory which is used as the
program working memory. The disadvantage with RAM is that once power is
lost so too are program working variables. It is common to support RAM such
that it will survive at least limited power-interrupts without the loss of memory. This
is accomplished by protecting the memory contents either by battery or capacitive
back-up.
The third type of semiconductor memory is Electrically Erasable Programmable
Read Only Memory (EEPROM or E?PROM). This is a read-write memory similar
to core and can therefore be used for program storage, it can also combine the
advantages of EPROM with the in-situ re-programming capabilities of core. The
disadvantages suffered by E7PROM until relatively recently were the low pack-
aging density (i.e. fewer memory devices for a given area or size of IC) compared
to EPROM and RAM, device package pin and programming voltage incompati-
bilities, and slower read-write times. In general, semiconductor memories are faster
than core. The advent of more user-friendly E7PROM together with increasing
packaging densities of EPROM and RAM mean that semiconductor memories are
presently in favour for most avionics applications.
The final memory technology to recently find some application in avionic systems
is bubble memory. This consists of a field of magnetic bubbles on a thin magnetic
material fabricated to exhibit uni-axial magnetic anisotropy; the easy axis of
magnetisation is perpendicular to the plane of the thin film. The application of
a correct bias field enables the bubbles to store binary (digital) data. The positions
of the bubbles are controlled by magnetically soft nickel-iron elements which may
be directionally magnetised by a rotating in-plane magnetic field. The packaging
of bubble memory is complicated as the magnetic environment required for correct
operation needs to be carefully controlled. The rewards are that the storage
capacity of bubble memory is far ahead of that for comparable semiconductor
memories. Access time is slower, but still faster than magnetic tapes, drums and
discs with which this type of memory is most comparable. Bubble memories are more
rugged than tape and disc memory techniques allow. Present bubble memories
are available to withstand temperatures of —55°C to +85°C which is rather
limited for some (certainly military) airborne applications. A typical example of the
application of bubble memory is the Flight Management Control System (FMCS)
described in Chapter Six. In this example bubble memory is used for the data
bank memory which holds all navigation and aircraft data.
Future advanced applications within avionic systems will increase the require-
36 ‘
 Data buses

ment for mass memories to store large quantities of mission data. Mass memories
may be satisfied by further developments of semiconductor and bubble memory
technologies. However it appears more likely that mass memory requirements of
100 megawords and upwards will demand a new technology such as laser disc to
be developed.

DATA BUSES

The availability of reliable digital semiconductor technology has enabled the

inter-communication task between different equipments to be significantly
improved. Previously, large amounts of aircraft wiring were required to connect
each signal with all the other equipments. As systems became more complex and
more integrated so this problem was aggravated. Digital data transmission tech-
niques use links which send streams of digital data between equipments. These
data links may only comprise two or four wires and therefore the inter-connecting
wiring is very much reduced. Recognition of the advantages offered by digital data
transmission has led to standardisation in both civil and military fields. The most
widely used digital data transmission standards are described later: ARINC 429
for civil and MIL-STD-1553B for military systems. First, a few basic system prin-
ciples will be outlined.

Common types of digital data transmission link are:

— Single source/Single sink — This is a dedicated link from one unit transmitting
data to another receiving the data. Where data is transmitted from one unit to
another and not back again, it is called half-duplex. If the link is able to transmit
data both ways it is termed full-duplex. The serial data transmission link used
on the Tornado and Sea Harrier is single source, single sink, half-duplex.
— Single source/Multiple sink — This describes a situation where one transmitting
equipment sends data to a number of receiving equipments (sinks). ARINC 429
as used on large civil transports, such as the Boeing 757 and 767 is an example
of a single source, multiple sink transmission system.
— Multiple source/Multiple sink — In this system multiple transmitting sources may
transmit data to multiple receivers. MIL-STD-1553B and the embryonic
DATAC (ARINC 629) are examples of this type of system.

As summarised above, the commonly used ARINC 429 is a single source, multiple
sink system; it also acts as half-duplex, therefore different links need to be
installed for two-way traffic to be established. If a number of equipments — say
four — are inter-connected by ARINC 429 and a further equipment is added then
the additional data links required are as shown in Fig. 3.4. Therefore, where the
number to be inter-connected is large, or where an additional link is required for
modification reasons, the number of ARINC 429 links needed is large. Modern
airliners such as, again, the Boeing 757 and 767 may have as many as 150 data
links to inter-connect the aircraft avionic systems.
The characteristics of ARINC 429 were agreed among the airlines in 1977/78
and the data bus is widely used on the Boeing 757, 767 and Airbus A 300/A,
310/A, and 320 aircraft. An ARINC 429 data bus comprises a screened, twisted-
wire pair with the screen usually earthed at both ends and at all intermediate
breaks. The transmitting element is embedded in the transmitting equipment and
may interface with up to 20 receiving terminals in the receiving equipments. Infor-
mation may be transmitted at either a high rate of 100 kilobits per second or at
37
 Digital Technology

Fig. 3.4 ARINC 429 -

addition of
equipment

Single-source Multiple sink

a low rate of 12 to 14 kilobits per second. The modulation technique is bipolar

RTZ (Return To Zero) which has three signal levels: high, null or low. A logic
state 1 is represented by a high state returning to zero; a logic state 0 is
represented by a low state returning to zero. Refer to Fig. 3.5 for an example.
Information is transmitted down the data bus as 32-bit words as shown in Fig.
3.6. The standard has many fixed labels and formats so that a particular type of
equipment always transmits data in a particular way. This has the advantage that
all manufacturers of a particular equipment know what data to expect; where
necessary, additions to the data format may be made. ARINC 429 is now widely
accepted and understood by the civil aircraft industry and is relatively inexpensive
to implement. If there is a disadvantage it is that the single source, single sink
half-duplex nature of the system is not the most efficient.

Fig. 3.5 ARINC 429 — Data

RTZ modulation
High

Null

Low

= 10 psec or clock rate = 100 KHz

Fig. 3.6 ARINC 429 - Data Pp anaes 320 sec ae aS

format
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 Bits

Data
field
Label
Source/ Signal/ Parity
Destination status (odd)
Identifier matrix
38
 Data buses
Fig. 3.7 MIL-STD-1553B
addition of
equipment

Data bus

In Fig. 3.4 an example of expanding a system inter-connected by four ARINC

429 data buses was given as a fifth element was added. The same example of
adding a fifth element using a MIL-STD-1553B data bus is shown in Fig. 3.7.
It is clear that adding an additional element is far easier to implement than was
the case for ARINC 429, though not without modification to the controlling
element (bus controller) software. This ease of modification is of great benefit for
military avionic systems which are often updated to maintain effective operational
capability.
MIL-STD-1553B has evolved since the original publication of MIL-STD-
1553 in 1973. The standard has developed through a 1553A standard issued in
April 1975 to the present 1553B standard which was issued in September 1978.
The application of 1553 has been apparent for some time in US military aircraft
systems. The F-16, B-1, F-18 and AV-8B have all used variants. More recently,
the UK industry has used the 1553B standard for the integration of aircraft and
helicopter avionic systems and also for land based and marine systems.
The basic layout of a MIL-STD-1533B data bus is given in Fig. 3.8. The data
bus consists of a twin wire twisted pair along which DATA and DATA are passed
though future applications may utilise a fibre-optic transmission medium. The stan-
dard allows for dual redundant or even quadruplex redundant terminals although
for most applications the dual redundant implementation is sufficient.
Control of the bus is effected by a Bus Controller (BC) which is connected
to a number of Remote Terminals (up to a maximum of 31) via the data bus. Remote
Terminals (RTs) may be processors in their own right or may interface with a
number of sub-systems (up to a maximum of 30) with the data bus. Data is trans-
mitted at 1MHz using a self-clocked Manchester bi-phase digital format. The
transmission of data in true and complement form down a screened twisted pair
or fibre-optic link, together with a message error detection capability offers a high
integrity digital data link which is highly resistant to message corruption. Words
are formatted as Data Words, Command Words or Status Words as shown in
Fig. 3.9. Data words encompass a 16-bit digital word whereas the command and
status words are compartmented to include various address, sub-address and
control functions.
Control of the data transactions on the data bus and the issue of the appropriate
command and status words are carried out by the bus controller; in a practical
system there is likely to be more than one bus controller for redundancy reasons.
39
 Digital Technology

Fig. 3.8 MIL-STD-1553B

basic layout
Bus
Controller

Remote in
Terminal eae?
Sas
Remote Pan
Terminal Data

SSIFU-Sub-system
Interface
Unit

Fig. 3.9 MIL-STD-1553B Data word-20 bits 20 psec

word formats i) BoSZ) eG oS) SO Se ee Se alee.
[RE aaa a ee | ee ee eae |e |ee |e ee
Parity
SANG Oe yt AO eee ae i,
| —— + Data
oi ee be word
i Data rat
| | ||
iearr Disliked sadam 3. oa. . T Command
1 ' 1 : word

| | RT Address T1/R Sub-address/ Data word count!

| | mode /mode code |

| %rrr res po reaa ike | Status

H e erat
gee nae het2 4
H word
| Terminal INSTN Reserved Busy Dyn |
| address bus [
| | control |
Message Service Be. SS) jenn
error Req recd flag flag

In a simple transfer of data from an RT to the BC, the BC sends a transmit

command to the appropriate RT, which replies after a short interval gap with a
status word, followed immediately by one or more data words up to a maximum of
32 words. In the case shown the transaction of one word from an RT to the BC
will take approximately 70 wseconds. For the transfer of data between RTs the
BC sends a receive command to one RT followed by a transmit command to the
other RT. The delivering RT sends a data word (or data words up to a maximum
of 32 words) preceded by a status word, to the recipient RT which in turn sends
a status word to the BC, thereby concluding the transaction. In the example shown
40 ‘
 Data buses
a time elapse of around 120 yseconds is required to transfer one data word from
one RT to another which is rather expensive in overheads. If however a maximum
ts
Fig. 3.10 MIL-STD-1553B of 32 data words had been transferred the overheads would be the same, though
typical data now representing a much lower percentage of the overall message time. Refer to
transactions Fig. 3.10.

b> 70 us
B Transmit
Cc
command

a
|
Status Data
||

RT, to Bc transfer

Bo Receive Transmit
command | command

RTa
| Status Data
| word word

RTs
|
|
|
RT, to RTg transfer

Fig. 3.11 MIL-STD-1553B

simple bus
implementation

A typical MIL-STD-1553B system is shown in Fig. 3.11 the BC controlling

a number of RTs on the data bus: the parallel lines are the standard representation
of a dual redundant bus implementation. A more complex system is shown in
Fig. 3.12, where two data buses are linked by means of a Bus Interface Unit
(BIFU). In a typical application of 1553 to an aircraft system BiFUs may link the
main system avionic or mission bus to one or more subsidiary buses. In this situ-
ation the BIFU acts as an RT on the main system bus while also being the BC
for the subsidiary data bus. In the example shown the RTs or processors on the
subsidiary bus have the ability to interface with analogue, discrete, digital and
optical data. By this means the benefits of 1553 may be extended to large and
complex systems which embrace a wide variety of signal parameters and functions.
A prime advantage of MIL-STD-1533B is that it is, by definition, a standard.
This stimulates the widespread availability of components and expertise throughout
the life of a system due to wide acceptance of 1553 across all or most military
41
 Digital Technology

Fig. 3.12 MIL-STD-1553B Displays

multiple bus
implementation
Main
mission
bus

Utility
data
bus

ANALOGUES DIGITAL

DISCRETES OPTICAL

projects. A further advantage is the acknowledgement of the standard, not just in

the US, but in European, Middle and Far Eastern applications. The inherent
advantages of MIL-STD-1533B are:
— weight savings resulting in cost savings and performance improvements;
— high integrity data transmission system;
built-in redundancy with consequent fault tolerance;
battle damage resistance;
flexibility;
life cycle cost savings — easier to modify, maintain and test;
reliability — available in the latest LSI technology.
In the civil field the shortcomings of ARINC 429 have been long understood.
For more than five years the Boeing Company have been developing a civil equiv-
alent of MIL-STD-1553B for use in civil applications. In the civil sphere, 1553B
is viewed with reservation because of the need for a central control element — the
bus controller — though it has already been stated that practical military systems
have more than one controller per bus. The alternative that Boeing have been at
the forefront in proposing is known as Data Autonomous Transmission And
Communication (DATAC). This is presently being debated as a possible new
ARINC standard (ARINC 629), embodying improvements upon ARINC 429. Like
1553, DATAC terminals would be embedded in functional equipments being
inter-connected using the data bus.
In the DATAC system, the control function is distributed among all the partici-
pating terminals present on the bus. These terminals autonomously determine the
transmission of data on the bus by means of a protocol termed Carrier-
Sense/Multiple Access-Clash Avoidance (CS/MA-CA). In simple terms the
protocol guarantees access to any participating terminal, but prevents any terminal
from having access to the bus before all other terminals have had an opportunity
to transmit data. Data transmission by DATAC comprises strings of data words
‘
 Data buses

accompanied by label and address data. The data word length is 16 bits as for
1553. However DATAC offers more flexibility in terms of the number of terminals;
120 terminals may be supported in lieu of the maximum of 31 offered by 1553. The
data transmission word string is also greater; a maximum number of 256 words may
be transferred as opposed to the maximum of 32 for 1553. The proposed imple-
mentation for DATAC is serial Manchester bi-phase, 1 MHz data transmission
over twisted wire, screened pairs as for 1553. Therefore the practical limitations
for both systems are the same, namely a bus length limitation of around 100 metres.
Boeing are actively considering the adoption of a DATAC type of transmission
system for systems integration on their next generation of civil transport aircraft
of which the Boeing 757 will be a prime example.
All of the data buses so far described — ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553B and
the proposed DATAC system ~ are presently implemented using twisted, screened
wire pairs. There are limitations to this implementation. The constraint of a
physical bus length of around 100 metres is applied to the 1 MHz systems. The
use of electrical wire transmission media may be adversely affected by external
effects such as electro-magnetic interference (EMI) or lightning strikes. For these
reasons and for the need to achieve higher data rates of transmission, the use of
fibre-optic transmission techniques is under active consideration.
Fibre-optic transmission techniques will permit data rates of 50 MHz and even
as high as 100 MHz, some 50 to 100 times faster than those of existing avionic
systems. In the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) data bus forum, discussions
have been under way during which two primary candidates are being considered.
These topologies or architectures are the linear bus and ring networks. See
Fig. 3.13 for a simple comparison of these architectures.

Fig. 3.13 Fibre-optic bus

candidate
architectures

Ring

Linear bus network

The ring, as the name suggests, consists of a series of point-to-point links which
connect the participating terminals into a ring. Signal re-generation occurs at each
stage and therefore the overall reliability of the system is less than if a passive
inter-connect system were employed. The design of this type of system needs to
take account of how such failures may be tolerated.
The linear bus network, using a token passing protocol, appears to be the more
43
Digital Technology

favoured architecture of the two, certainly by potential users in the military field
such as the US Air Force. Inter-connection is by means of ‘STAR’ couplers as
it is not possible to configure a “TEE” junction in a fibre-optic bus without
incurring unacceptable losses.
The main shortcomings which have been experienced with fibre-optics have
been the signal attenuation at connectors and the repeatability of such connectors.
Only recently have durable connectors with acceptable loss rates become reality.
Therefore although fibre-optics offer significant potential for future applications
it will be some time before such systems are widely employed.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES

The application of electronics, and in particular digital technology, has had an

enormous impact upon the performance and capabilities of avionic systems. As part
of the digital technology revolution, the availability of digital computers and
microprocessors has been the key in giving inherent intelligence to these systems.
The advent of microprocessors in the past fifteen years has greatly accelerated this
trend, to the point where some of the second generation 16-bit microprocessors
are now able to rival, in performance and capabilities, the minicomputers of five
to ten years ago. Furthermore these microprocessors are cheap and compact,
requiring little electronic real-estate to support them. The memory types needed
to support the microprocessor have also developed apace and the data bus tech-
nology required to inter-connect centres of intelligence is mature. Everything
therefore appears set fair for an unimpeded technology revolution: but this is not
entirely true as there is still the matter of software development.
The basic problem with any processor or computer, as home computing en-
thusiasts will be all too aware, is that a computer is little other than a very fast working
idiot. The computer or processor is only as good as the software that is driving
it. If the software is deficient, so then will the final system be deficient in perform-
ance. Unfortunately, as the first generation of airborne digital computers entered
service the implications of software upon in-service support were not immediately
recognised. In fact the need to support equipment hardware and software became
critical to the performance of the equipment in service.
Earlier in this chapter the adverse experiences of the US Air Force were
mentioned. The US Air Force were not alone in the problems they experienced,
they merely had the problem on a grander scale because of their greater inventory
of equipment.
Computer programs are commonly expressed at three levels. At one extreme
is the language which the processor hardware best operates; that is machine code.
At the other end of the spectrum is that which the computer programmer best
understands: the High-level Operating Language or HOL. In between the two is
an assembly or low level language. See Fig. 3.14 for a simple explanation of the
relationship between these languages.
The HOL is converted to assembly language by means of a compiler program.
The assembly language is converted to machine code by means of an assembler
program. Compiler and assembler programs may reside in the target processor
(that processor for which the program is ultimately intended) or in a host
processor (a processor used for convenience to develop the program). Host
processors may be modified or adapted to emulate the target processor. Alterna-
tively a cross-compiler or cross-assembler program may be necessary to ‘trans-
late’ the program. It is usual for the assembly language and the assembler

‘
 Software development methodologies
Fig. 3.14 Relationship of
computer languages High-level operating
language (HOL)

Compiler Project/customer
programme defined

Low level language |

(assembly language) iil

Assembler
programme Computer manufacturer
defined

Machine code

program to be supplied by computer or processor manufacturer. The assembly

language for a given processor will closely resemble the machine code instruction
set for the processor for which it was designed. It is therefore clear that different
processors will have an accompanying wide range of (usually incompatible)
assembly programs.
When an equipment is specified to fulfil a certain task or function, the oper-
ational tasks will dictate to a large degree the final technical solution or imple-
mentation. At the heart of the technical solution will be the choice of processor
and this choice is largely one of ‘horses-for-courses’. Some machines are more
suitable for arithmetic or mathematical rather than logical manipulation. The
designer may have a preference for one processor as opposed to another as he
may already have had design experience with the former. The customer or the
manufacturer may dictate the processor to be used. The processor which the
designer wishes to use may not be mature or be available in sufficient quantities;
or the software support and design tools may be deficient. The list of factors is
almost endless; however it can be seen that there are a number of constraints
which affect processor selection and the associated software languages and
support.
It was to avoid these problems that the US Air Force started a standard-
isation initiative with MIL-STD-1750 (now 1750A). This aims to standardise the
Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) so that a range of processors supplied by
different manufacturers will execute the same instruction set. As mentioned earlier,
this has not met with universal acclaim from the industry. The prime objections
are that the standardised ISA is cumbersome and is far more than is required for
many applications. The second is that of cost; MIL-STD-1750A chip sets are
presently much more expensive than the commercially derived equivalents. Never-
theless, the incentive to standardise across all three US armed services as well as
the US allies in NATO is a very powerful factor. MIL-STD-1750A implemented
in VLSI (VHSIC) technology is being specified at the heart of a multi-million
dollar development termed PAVE PILLAR which will comprise the avionic and
mission systems for the US Air Force Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF). There
is very strong pressure from the US Congress to apply this technology to the US
Navy Advanced Tactical Aircraft (ATA) and the US Army LHX programs in
the interests of standardisation and risk reduction. Whether this will succeed
remains to seen, however it is indicative of the standardisation pressures which
exist in the US.
45
Digital Technology

A key area in the development of modern computer development is the choice

of the high-level operating language or HOL. Examples of high-level languages
are FORTRAN, COBOL, CORAL, PASCAL, JOVIAL (US) and ADA (ADA
is a registered Trade Name ofthe US Department of Defense, ADA Joint Program
Office). The use of a HOL is an aid to easing software development and mini-
mising software development time. This is true for a variety of reasons.

— High-level language statements are more intelligible and meaningful to the

programmer.
~ Each high-level statement usually corresponds to several or many machine code
instructions.
— The ease of use means that the programmer is less likely to make errors.
~ The high-level language allows a better program structure than assembly
language. This leads to a more structured, modular program; thereby aiding
visibility and understanding of the program and minimising semantic errors.
It is also easier to debug and modify.
It is usual for most of the available microprocessors to have the associated high-
level language and software developments tools available. As for the other stan-
dardisation issues, the customer is likely to specify the high-level language in
which he wishes the program to be written. The scope for waiver of these
requirements is becoming progressively less. In practice assembly language is still
used where the software function is intimately involved with hardware device func-
tion. Examples are processor initialization or Built-In-Test (BIT), or where time-
critical software functions are being programmed. It is generally recognised and
accepted that software produced using high-level languages is less efficient than
that which may be produced by an optimum assembly language program. Against
this must be weighed the fact that high-level programs are easier to write. In
particular, if the program is large and sophisticated and is to require the services
of inexperienced programmers, then the use of a high-level language will bear
dividends. Furthermore, the availability of cheap high density memory devices as
described earlier in this chapter removes the constraint of memory size which used
to apply to former systems.
The most common high-level languages are effectively becoming standards. The
UK Ministry of Defence specified CORAL as the preferred high-level language
for a number of years. PASCAL has been an accepted standard in avionic systems
for several years; the use of ADA is commonly mandated as the standard language
today. The US Air Force specified JOVIAL for some years but are now insisting
on ADA to be used in conjunction with the MIL-STD-1750A ISA. The US
Department of Defense have invested a lot of money in ADA and this development
is led by the ADA Joint program Office. This development includes the software
development tool set and development environment called ADA Development
Support Environment (ADSE) which aims to tighten control during software
development projects. It has been claimed that the use of ADA will halve the soft-
ware development costs compared with JOVIAL, itself already offering consider-
able advances over former development languages.
The choice of processor and accompanying assembler, and the selection of high-
level language are important. However if the avionic system requirements are not
correctly identified and understood at the outset then no amount of software will
produce an acceptable solution. There is an increasing reliance upon top-down
design approaches which decompose or break-down the system requirements from
the highest level in a methodical and logical fashion. In this way inconsistencies

‘
 Reference

in requirement or system implementation may be recognised at an early stage in

[Link] necessary, performance trade-offs can be conducted without an
enormous amount of effort and time being expended. These top-level design
approaches break the system down to smaller and more easily understood modules
or elements. Therefore the activities which take place within the modules or
elements, as well as any communication between them, may be better comprehended
and documented. This activity precedes software design and coding, and it will
assist in identifying the major software tasks which will need to be performed and
help to size the overall scale of the development task.
The Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP) aircraft developed by British
Aerospace and UK industry (see Chapter Five) made extensive use of a technique
called Semi-Automatic Functional Requirements Analysis (SAFRA). This meth-
odology was applied to the avionic system as well as the Utilities Management
System; the latter is described in detail in Chapter Six. An important feature
of this methodology was Controlled Requirements Expression (CORE). This
enabled all the information and data strings to be identified and checked for
consistency. System processing tasks were identified at an early stage in devel-
opment, in turn allowing the software designers adequate time to design modular
software, and code and test in compliance with strict programme timescales. The
whole emphasis has been that of allocating more time to correctly identifying and
specifying systems and less for coding, testing and debugging software.
This chapter has given a brief overview of some of the digital technologies
which have made existing avionic systems possible, or which will be implemented
in systems presently being designed. Advances in technology in the avionic systems
field occur so often that it is impossible to forecast where the next development
of note will occur. It appears likely that the increasingly sophisticated technology
becoming available will be applied in these systems and will find increasing appli-
cation in high integrity systems. The introduction of high technology in these areas
will doubtless be approached with caution by the aircraft manufacturers; however,
the benefits in performance will be difficult to resist. If there are areas where
increased emphasis is to be applied, it is believed to be in the increased integration
of system functions, increased standardisation and a greater reliance upon the
timely and efficient production of the large software programmes involved. (See
Chapter Eleven.)
It will also be apparent that substantial weight savings will be achieved by
replacing multi-cable looms by twin-wire data buses, with consequent reduction
in installation times, particularly in such locations as the rear of the instrument
panels.

REFERENCE

1. Stamper, J. ‘Information Technology in Aerospace Engineering’, Part 2, Aerospace,

March 1986.

47
CHAPTER 4 FLIGHT DECKS AND COCKPITS
LESLIE F. E. COOMBS. | Eng. [Link], FRSA

Mr Coombs has been researching and writing on aviation subjects in general and
on ergonomics and avionics in particular during his 50 years in civil and military
aviation.
He has contributed to many technical journals and, for the past 19 years, has
been editor of ‘Aerospace and Defence Review’, a specialist technical publication
on avionic systems.
As an ergonomist Mr Coombs lectures on the human factors aspect of flight
deck design and, in the 1950s, as technical Secretary of the British Airline Pilots
Association, helped to integrate pilot opinion in the design of new aircraft
cockpits. As early as 1955 he advocated the side stick control concept and direct
data links between aircraft and air traffic control.

The modern flight deck and cockpit have developed to their present standards
through the application of avionic systems. Without avionics on the flight deck and
in the cockpit modern civil and military flying could not be carried on with safety
and at an acceptable cost.
Understanding the role of avionics in the control positions of modern aircraft
is facilitated if we consider the flight deck and the cockpit as a whole. By reviewing
the development and functions of the non-avionic elements we can understand
better the importance and the contribution of avionics to the design of the pilot’s
place and the needs of the pilot.
Therefore, before going into the details of avionics in this context, the following
paragraphs cover the design of that part of an aircraft allocated to the operating
crew.

THE PILOT’S PLACE

From the earliest years aircraft designers have had to provide a dedicated position
for the pilot and the controls and instruments needed for safe and effective control.
There have been two major lines of development, the single-engine, single-seat
and two-seat aircraft and, the multi-engine aircraft with side-by-side seats for two
pilots. These are generalisations because there have been, and are, numerous
exceptions. However, for the purposes of this study these two principal cockpit
and flight deck arrangements form the background to the subject of avionics on
the flight deck and in the cockpit.
It is also important to emphasise that although civil and military aircraft have
been designed to different standards so as to meet requirements which are, in
general, unique to each of these major classifications, there are a large number
of systems and a lot of control equipment which for all practical purposes we can
consider as being common to both.
‘
 The Pilot’s place
Structural design and The introduction of pressurisation, particularly for civil aircraft, resulted in a
avionics significant change in the structural design of the flight deck section of the airframe.
In particular it imposed a severe limitation on the area available for the forward
windows. One result of this was an increase in the risk of mid-air collision, and
therefore avionic systems began to proliferate to meet the demand for more accurate
track keeping. This is an example of non-avionic factors forcing the pace of
avionics.

Speed and avionics Until about 1950 the majority of civil transport aircraft cruised at about 250 knots.
Within only ten years cruising speeds of over 400 knots became commonplace.
These speeds were, of course, a benefit conferred by the jet engine. However,
a price had to be paid and this was the requirement for accurate navigational aids
to ensure that the optimum tracks and flight profiles were flown to avoid excessive
fuel consumption. So, once again, avionic systems had to be advanced in tech-
nology to keep pace with the ever increasing speeds and operating heights. At the
same time, as we have seen, accurate track keeping demanded more and better
avionic aids to navigation.

Crew positions and avionics An important distinction between civil transport flight decks and the cockpits of
single and tandem seat air force aircraft is the concept that in a side-by-side flight
deck some of the avionic systems can be shared by the two pilots. Obviously in
a tandem seat military aircraft, such as a trainer, avionic systems often have to be
duplicated. This also serves to introduce another difference between civil and
military pilots’ places. This is the safety concept for civil transport aircraft in which
vital, that is essential systems are, at least, duplicated and often triplicated so that
in the event of a failure of one system the crew will not be deprived completely
of information or control. By contrast less multiplication, i.e. redundancy, of
systems is acceptable in a military single or two seat aircraft; in the last resort the
crew can eject.

Flight deck and cockpit An obvious requirement in any flight deck or cockpit is an arrangement of panels
environment and pedestals on which to mount the instruments and controls.
They have to be positioned and their sizes selected to match the ergosphere
of the pilot or pilots. The ergosphere is an imaginary space surrounding the pilot.
It defines the limits of his or her physical characteristics; such as reach of hands
and feet and the normal range of eyesight for reading the symbols and alphanu-
merics displayed by the instruments and indicators.
In a side-by-side transport aircraft flight deck the ergospheres of the two pilots
overlap the centre line of the flight deck and each other. As already mentioned
this feature makes it possible for some of the controls and displays to be shared.

The control interface The control interface on the flight deck and in the cockpit is an imaginary
boundary across which are exchanged information and control actions between
the pilot and the aircraft.
The pilot of an aircraft cannot maintain safe or efficient control without infor-
mation. In the simplest aircraft, possibly with only a few instruments, the pilots
depend on their natural senses and vision to effect control. The view of the earth
and in particular the line of the horizon provide an essential reference for keeping
control of the aircraft.
The history of aviation is marked by a number of milestones in technology. Each
represents a new idea or technique which has enabled aircraft to be flown faster,
49
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

higher and over greater distances than the previous generation. Some mark the
introduction of systems and equipment for improving the safety and regularity of
flights. Others mark the development of systems which have provided an important
upward step in aircraft effectiveness: lower fuel consumption; lower operating
costs; and greater versatility of use.
Clearly, avionics has been one of the most important contributors to the growth
of aviation and has advanced in parallel with the development of more powerful
and efficient engines and stronger and lighter structures. But nowhere has this
been more important than at the control interface between pilots and their aircraft.

Sensors, processors and A theme which occurs frequently in this book is ‘sensors, processors and displays’.
displays This chapter is concerned primarily with displays. However, the control interface,
as described, forms a two-way interchange of information and actions between the
pilot and the aircraft. Therefore any survey of the avionics which is of direct
concern to the pilot — which means the majority, must include the systems and
equipment which the pilot uses to effect or implement his or her responses to the
information presented by the instruments and displays. Input devices, such as
Fig. 4.1 EFIS units and levers, knobs, switches, buttons and alphanumeric keypads are part of the interface
signal interfacing
(Micro-electronics in
and its ergonomics.
Aircraft System, Figure 4.1 shows the ‘Electronic Instrument System’ (EIS) architecture of a civil
Perinjeeallet) aircraft. As can be seen, the system and sub-systems are~made up of sensors,

bs R
Control panel Control panel
Brightness
control
lk Attitude i Attitude R
Remote director director Remote
light sensor indicator indicator light sensor

Horizontal Horizontal
situation situation
indicator indicator

Digital flight data anb Data buses ——).

acquisition unit ‘
i Display unit
drive signals a
R switched -—->
Symbol Symbol Symbol drive signals
generator generator generator
Left L Right R Centre C

VOR tae TC (VOR ILS TMC ( VOR

ethos
AIRS TMC
OME FCO DME RAD. ALT DME ee
— WXR_ J IRS ILS
LJ RAD. ALT PMCS IRS FMCS RAD. ALT + FMCS
WXR FCC FCC R< wxr
IRS
FCC Rates FCC
FMCS FMCS
EFIS Units and
signal interfacing
 The Pilot’s place
processors and displays. Each discrete unit or element is linked to the others by
one or more data buses. An interesting feature of the layout is the large number
of input sensors. At one time each sensor would have had a unique link to an
appropriate processor or flight deck instrument. With an EIS, as shown, there is
interoperability and interchange of data between the system elements. Redundancy,
to ensure that the crew is not deprived completely of information in the event of
a failure, is part of the architecture adopted.
If the pilot needs to know, and can make adjustments to an avionic system then
data signals must link it to displays, annunciators and controls within sight, sound
and reach of the pilot. All avionic systems can be classified as primary, secondary,
tertiary or maintenance. However, these classifications are not immutable. They
can vary with changing circumstances.
Primary displays and controls are positioned as close as possible to the pilot’s
forward line of sight and within the envelope which defines the limits of comfort-
able reach.

Ergonomics As is to be expected, any book on avionics, particularly in those chapters dealing

with controls and displays, will describe in detail the technologies used to achieve
movement, colour, symbols, shapes and alphanumerics. Methods by which the pilot
can insert commands and responses, such as control levers, switches and keypads,
are also important subjects.
Ergonomics is the study of man in his working environment and therefore
includes the study of both man and machine. It is intended to achieve safe and
efficient use of both and to prevent the human operator making mistakes.
The history of ergonomics in aviation is characterised by a continuous process
of looking at why something went wrong and then finding ways to prevent it
happening again. Ergonomics has also tried to anticipate problems by extensive
research into human factors and particularly in the context of this chapter, into
better ways of presenting visual data to the pilot.
Until electronic displays became practicable there was little that could be done
to improve the quality of information provided by electro-mechanical instruments.
These had been developed to the limits of the technology. Any further advances
could only be achieved at the cost of complexity which in turn affected
reliability.
Many of the advances made in electro-mechanical instruments followed inci-
dents and accidents in which it was clear that the pilot had either been led into
making a mistake or had received insufficient data. These advances, such as the
abandonment of the three-pointer altimeter, only took place after a significant
number of accidents had occurred. The three-pointer altimeter, whose pointers
might be read by the pilot as indicating that the aircraft was ten thousand feet
higher than it actually was, remained as a standard for over 20 years. Only after
many people had been killed was legislation introduced to have it replaced by
something better. In the days before solid-state techniques, such as light emitting
diodes, (LEDs), the solution had to be electro-mechanical. The problem was
solved by adding a drum counter display of three digits to the conventional
pointer-on-dial altimeter so as to provide an unambiguous read-out of altitude.
The significance of this particular item of instrument history to avionics on the
flight deck is the limitation on better instrument design imposed by the available
technology. Today’s technology provides an embarrassment of riches: a wide range
of colours for differentiating types of data, symbols and graphics and alphanu-
merics provide virtually unlimited choice so as to present the pilot with everything
51
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

essential for controlling the aircraft. But the most significant limitation imposed
by pre-avionic displays was inflexibility. A pointer moved across a dial, for example,
but its shape, colour and range of movement,could not be varied by the pilot to
match a particular operating mode, whereas one of the most distinctive character-
istics of electronic displays is their flexibility. This applies not only to things the
pilot can select but the ability to change the characteristics and range of a display
to match changes in aircraft performance and handling following modifications.

INSTRUMENTS AND DISPLAYS

The modern aircraft instrument panel usually consists of a number of solid-state

cathode ray tube (CRT) colour displays. Typically each of these has a 6 X 5 inch
screen. Other displays use LEDs or liquid crystal.
The solid-state or, as it is sometimes called, ‘glass cockpit’ is rapidly becoming
the standard for both civil and military aircraft. However, before describing in any
detail the application and use of these modern displays, it is important to look at
the history of instrument development. This will give a better understanding of
the function of the information displays on the flight deck and in the cockpit.
In the beginning there were few if any instruments. In 1903 when the Wright
brothers achieved the first controllable, man-carrying, powered flight with a
heavier-than-air machine their primary instruments were their ears, the sensation
of movement imparted to their senses and the attitude and movement of their frail
flying machine in relation to the earth’s surface. As their early flights rarely
achieved more than a hundred feet above the ground there was no need for an
altimeter even if one had been available. Similarly speeds were not very high and
the sound of the engine was of greater importance than worrying about how fast
or how high.
With the rapid progress in aircraft design during the ten years from 1903
instruments were gradually introduced as aircraft became capable of flying signifi-
cant distances and climbing to heights above which it was difficult to assess alti-
tude by eye alone.
The tremendous upsurge in both technology and numbers and in the types of
aircraft between 1914 and 1918 was matched by the development of instruments
specifically for aircraft use. Hitherto they were often adaptations of automobile
or marine equipment: the aneroid barometer of the meteorologist was one of the
first altimeters because its use had been anticipated by the Victorian balloonists.

Certification requirements The certification requirements (see Chapter Two) serve to introduce the minimum
number of instruments and displayed parameters whether for electro-mechanical
or fully electronic systems. As with the pointer-on-dial, electro-mechanical instru-
ments, the characteristics and performance of electronic displays and instruments
for civil aircraft must conform to national and international standards.
Although there are variations among the different civil aviation certificating
authorities there is general agreement on certain minimum standards. Using the
Joint Airworthiness Requirements (JARs) of Europe as an example these specify
that a primary flight display, such as an attitude director, must be clearly visible
to the pilot when he is looking forward along the flight path. This applies, of
course, to both electro-mechanical and electronic displays. JARs also require that
when a ‘stand-by’ instrument is fitted it must be positioned so that it can be seen
by both pilots.
The JARs also specify the ‘basic tee’ configuration for airspeed, attitude, alti-
52 ‘
 Instruments and displays

tude and navigation displays and the use of red for warning, amber for caution
and green for safe operation.
They also specify that instrument systems must be arranged so that those of the
principal pilot’s position (P1) are independent of the instruments at other crew
positions. This is to ensure that any failure or combination of failures, unless
extremely improbable, will not deprive the pilot of the speed, attitude and heading
information needed to maintain control of the aircraft.
JARs also specify the minimum number of displayed parameters for a civil
passenger aircraft. For each pilot’s position they are: airspeed, Mach number,
altimeter, vertical speed, rate of turn and slip/skid, bank and pitch angles, heading
and aural speed warning. In addition and visible to both pilots: outside air
temperature, clock and a stand-by direction indicator.
Engine instrumentation for a turbo-jet aircraft includes for each engine: fuel
pressure warning, oil quantity, oil pressure warning, oil temperature, fire warning,
gas temperature — usually EGT (exhaust gas temperature), fuel flow rate, shaft
speed, and ice protection. In addition there has to be a separate indication of the
fuel quantity in each tank of the aircraft.

Instrument evolution The modern electronic instrument system provides a useful example at the end of
a long line of development from the direct reading compass, through the radio
bearing indicators to the ‘map’ or horizontal navigation situation display. By
following the evolutionary steps which led to today’s solid-state electronic displays
we can better understand the way in which, step by step over the years, avionics
has provided the only solution to the problem of improving both the quality and
quantity of data available to the pilot.
We can start with the magnetic compass. This was one of the earliest instru-
ments and was derived from the marine compass. Until the mid-1930s the magnetic
compass was just one of six or eight flight instruments. The introduction of the
gyroscope mechanism for flight instruments provided the heading indicator from
which the pilot could quickly see any change of heading. As with all gyroscopic
devices the heading indicator began to ‘wander’ after a time so that the pilot had
to reset it by reference to the magnetic compass. However for many decades,
particularly in the smaller types of aircraft as well as in aircraft of the Royal Air
Force, the magnetic compass and the heading indicator remained as essential
instruments. However, there was an alternative. This was the remote reading
compass developed primarily in the US and Germany. The advantage of this was
the easy-to-read compass rose dial with a moving pointer operated remotely from
a magnetic compass system located in a part of the aircraft where the adverse
effects of stray magnetic fields were at a minimum.
In parallel with the evolution of the remote reading compass the radio bearing
indicator was developed. Within the somewhat wide definition of avionics, both
this and the remote reading compass could be classed as ‘avionic’. The direction-
finding antenna was arranged to align itself automatically with a selected radio
beacon and to indicate the relative direction of the beacon in degrees on either
side of the aircraft’s nose.
The next step was to combine the compass indicator with the radio bearing
indicator. This produced the radio magnetic indicator (RMI). With this instrument
the pilot can read both the magnetic heading of the aircraft as well as the bearing
of the radio beacon and, without ambiguity, instantly relate one to the other.
A further development in which a number of electro-mechanical and electronic
elements were combined produced the horizontal situation indicator (HSI), (Fig.
53
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.2 Typical electro- DME range Selected course

mechanical horizontal
situation indicator
(HSI) Smiths
Industries ILS failure flag
SS
_ Azimuth failure
COURSE flag
Girus

Heading index

ILS glideslope
deviation

Directional gyro
failure flag

Heading
selector knob

Loss of power flag Command track knob

Compass card -

Command track pointer and

lateral deviation bar

4.2). This, together with the attitude director (ADI), became the first ‘pictorial’
instruments because they went some way toward providing the pilot with an easily
interpretable picture of where the aircraft was at that moment, its attitude and
where it was likely to be at some future time.
Both the HSI and the ADI have been developed to the limits of electro-mechanical
technology. Even with the help of some solid-state electronics to improve
accuracy, reliability and versatility of information little more could be done to
improve the ‘picture’. This was produced by pointers, scales, spheres and rotating
discs and symbols. The pilot could neither add to nor reduce the amount of
information provided; a facility only available with modern electronic displays.
It is important before dealing with electronic displays in detail to emphasise the
large measure of standardisation of instrument positions which was achieved inter-
nationally for civil aircraft.
As instruments began to proliferate on the flight deck in the 1930s not much
thought was given to where they should be located in relation to the pilot’s centre
line and eye point. Nor was much consideration given to the relative positions of
the different instruments in front of him. For example it was not unusual to find
that a clock, some RPM indicators, compass repeater and altimeter were grouped
on the centre of the panel. The airspeed indicator and other important instruments
might have been ‘scattered’ elsewhere.
In the mid 1930s the Royal Air Force decided that there would be a Basic Six
panel of instruments which would be a standard for all future aircraft types. This
was in contrast to the practices of the other countries. In the United States, for
example, instrument panels of all types of aircraft continued to have a ‘mixed’
arrangement.
The importance of this review of instrument panel layout to the subject of
-
 Avionics the only answer

avionics on the flight deck and in the cockpit, is shown by the fact that today the
relative positions of the different symbols and alphanumeric groups on an EIS
display reflect, to a large extent, the standard arrangements of electro-mechanical
instruments arrived at by about 1950 for the majority of aircraft types in the
Western world.

AVIONICS THE ONLY ANSWER

Many of the uses of avionics are as alternatives to electro-mechanical technologies.

However, as already mentioned, avionics can do things which were never possible
with other technologies which would have needed excessive development times and
complex, not easy to set-up and run systems, to achieve the abilities of an avionic
system.
One of the most important functions of avionics is the presentation of data to
a pilot when human senses, such as direct vision, have been cut off because of
poor or zero visibility at night or in rain, snow and fog.
In the late 1920s companies such as Sperry in the US, Reid & Sigrist in the
UK and Lorenz in Germany applied themselves to instruments and systems which
would overcome the pilot’s lack of sight of the horizon, the earth’s surface and
in particular the landing area. During the 1930s a number of important systems
were introduced: the Sperry artificial horizon indicator, the Reid & Sigrist turn
and bank indicator and the Lorenz landing guidance beam system. There were
others, but these three will serve as examples of the effort put into methods which
enabled a pilot to maintain stable flight without visual reference to the earth, to
make precisely banked and timed turns and to complete a landing in poor visibility.
The designers of the mechanical, gyro-based instruments achieved remarkable
progress without the help of avionics

Visual displays of Functions:

information
— monitoring the progress of flight;
— decision-making in relation to some future time or aircraft position;
— monitoring the correct functioning of all parts and systems of the aircraft.
These functions can be displayed separately or can be combined.
The number, type and amount of data displayed on all or on individual visual
displays can be varied with modern electronic instrument systems. It can vary in
accordance with the progress the flight and with the status of the various systems.
The amount of detailed information can be varied in extent either by the system
itself, in order to match the current operating mode, or by the aircraft crew.
Therefore, unlike pointer-on-dial, electro-mechanical or partly electronic
instruments, there is no dedicated, unvarying display format other than specific
formats for specific operating modes. Essentially, but as an extreme example, the
CRT displays on a transport aircraft flight deck might be, at a particular moment,
blank. This situation occurs when the aircraft is stationary, on the ground and
‘dead’, i.e. no electrical or electronic systems working. Between that condition and
the operating mode which requires the maximum amount of information there are
a great number of variations available to the crew.

Electro-mechanical Before describing the types and variations to be found among today’s extensive
instruments range of solid-state electronic displays and instruments, another reference is made
to the electro-mechanical flight instruments which still make up the greater part
55
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

of the world’s aircraft instrument panels. This is also necessary because, as we

have seen, the evolutionary rather than revolutionary progress of aviation tech-
nology has required the new to work alongside the old. And often the new tech-
nologies, such as solid-state displays, have first been introduced as part of hybrid
instruments in order to overcome the limitations of electro-mechanical techniques.
Flight instruments, that is those used to control heading, speed, vertical speed
and attitude, were the subject of numerous patents directed at giving higher
accuracy and versatility. Ease of reading on the part of the pilot was not given
much attention until after the Second World War. Floodlighting of the instrument
panel and integrally lit instruments gradually replaced individual instrument lamps
and the use of fluorescent paint. These went [Link] to meeting the problem
of seeing the instrument readings at night without conflict with the pilot’s view
outside the cockpit.
In the meantime a greater use was made of electro-mechanical techniques to
improve accuracy and to provide instruments which combined more than one
parameter or function in one display.

Hybrid instruments The attitude director indicator (ADI) (Fig. 4.3) is a typical example of the hybrid
electro-mechanical/electronic instrument.

Fig. 4.3. Attitude director Attitude Roll Roll attitude ~ Mode

indicator (ADI) — sphere scale pointer annunciators
electro-mechanical Attitude
warning flag
with some
electronics Sperry Flight director
Flight Systems warning flag

Aircraft symbol Pitch and roll

command bars

Glide slope
Speed command abe Mee
warning flag | Glide slope
Speed command pointer
pointer |
Rising runway Radio altitude
display
Decision height
Sg Decision height
Radio altitude set knob and
test switch dim control
Expanded Localizer
Attitude localizer warning flag
test switch pointer pointer
Incli (behind
nclinometer shutter) Black
Rate of turn shutter
warning flag

The modern ADI originated with the Sperry artificial horizon of 1929 which
enabled James Doolittle to complete the world’s first take-off, circuit and landing
without reference to the view outside the completely enclosed cockpit. Since that
important event a succession of improvements has been made to the sensitivity and
quality of the display. By the 1960s the ADI had been developed into a multi-
parameter display with colour used to differentiate between parts of the display.
Much of the advance in instrument technology was achieved by using miniature

‘
 Avionics the only answer

servo motors for driving the mechanical system including the sphere painted in the
sky and ground hemisphere colours.
‘The latest versions of the ADI incorporate a microprocessor and micro-servo.
In addition the pilot is presented with LED numeral readouts of decision height
and radio altitude. This is therefore an important step towards the electronic
instrument system.

Electronic displays Recently developed avionic technologies have revolutionised the ways in which
information is presented to the crew of an aircraft — and continue to do so. As
aircraft systems become more and more complex emphasis has to be on making the
most effective use of the human component of the man—machine interface: a
component which does not change.
The passive role of the human operator in which he or she responds to
changing data on a display screen by operating a set of controls or a keypad is
being superseded by the ‘interactive’ role for the human.
The advent of powerful and not too expensive digital computers allows us to
replace dedicated displays, such as an altimeter, by multi-function, colour, control
and display units. Interactive elements of a display allow the human component
of the interface to communicate with the systems by touching the screen or by using
direct voice input (DVI) and, therefore, without necessarily having to press, turn
or move other controls.
None of the avionic techniques described in the following pages makes the pilot
less important. The object of the new control and display techniques is to make
the most of human potential by eliminating the need to perform or monitor routine
tests. At the same time they can interface directly with the digital systems which
are now in the majority, and it is those digital systems which have made possible
solid-state, colour, displays. The result is a thorough rationalisation of the aircraft
man-—machine interface.

Electronic display To pilot an aircraft with safety and efficiency it is necessary to have an under-
requirements standing of the principles of aerodynamics. However, a detailed knowledge of the
functioning of an electronic display, such as the CRT, is not necessary either to
use it or service it. Provided the maintenance crew know how to change a failed
unit and how to complete the routine test procedures then the fact that the CRT
(Fig. 4.4) consists of such elements as different circuits, three electron guns,
directing coils, shadow mask and phosphor coating, made up of thousands of red-
green-blue pixels, is of little importance. After all such display units are usually
classified as line-replaceable. That is, if they fail, either in flight or during routine
test, they are ‘pulled’ at the first opportunity on the ground and a replacement
unit is substituted.
Therefore it is enough to understand that, within limitations, an electronic
display can provide a wide range of symbols, graphics and alphanumeric characters
in a range of contrasting colours. The concern of the pilot and the designer can
be limited to the quality of the information on the screen: is it unambiguous? Can
it be seen in all ambient conditions and over a wide viewing angle? Does it
avoid imposing adverse physical effects on the user? As an electronic display may
be the primary interface on the flight deck or in the cockpit, both the designer
and the pilot have to consider the ability of the system to overcome failures by
having sufficient built-in redundancy.
Of less concern to the pilot but of major concern to the designer are the
physical dimensions, power supply, interchangeability, built-in-test and safety and
57
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.4 Shadow mask colour

cathode ray tube for
electronic
displays Smiths
Industries

3 Guns polep)er)

Deflection
yoke

Mask Screen

Phosphor dots
(0.1 mm DIA)
|

3 Electron-beams

Blue

Red
Faceplate
Mask

cost of ownership. The last includes such contingencies as the failure of a display
unit at a remote airfield on an airline’s route or on an STOVL fighter operating
from the pad of a naval auxiliary vessel. Is the cost of keeping spare units at a
remote location justified?

Display technologies Figure 4.5 compares the principal display technologies which are currently avail-
compared able as production equipment. It is important to emphasise the development gap
which often exists between the prototype and the production standard. The latter
can only be realised after an acceptable number of units have been proved in flight
evaluation.
The colour CRT display, now so familiar for primary flight information and for
systems displays, can be used as the ergonomic standard when assessing the
performance of the other display techniques.
The viewing angle referred to is an obviously desirable quality of any display
in a cockpit or flight deck. Modern avionic displays can provide far wider viewing
angles than ‘conventional’ pointer-on-dial instruments. The sort of lateral angle
which is written into specifications is 60 degrees to each side of the normal, i.e.
an arc of 120 degrees over which the pilot or pilots have to be able to read
indications on a electronic display without ambiguity or loss of legibility. A
required vertical viewing angle might be plus or minus 35 degrees.

‘
 Avionics the only answer
Fig. 4.5 Display technologies
compared Display technologies compared

Cathode ray tube (CRT) Minus features:

Plus features: Slow response at low temperature
Well proved technology Has to be backlit in low ambient light
Narrow viewing angle
High resolution and contrast
Limited display size
Wide range of colours
High brightness High cost and circuit complexity for
full colour
Wide viewing angle
Low cost
Electroluminescence (EL)
Potential for ‘thin’ display units
Plus features:
Minus features:
Rugged, lightweight and reliable
Heavy and bulky
Long life
High voltage
High contrast and good resolution
High power consumption
High brightness
High temperature
Wide viewing angle
Sensitive to external electromagnetic
Extensive application
effects
Low power consumption
Affected by bright light
Vulnerable to shock, vibration and Minus features:
catastrophic failure Brightness reduces with increasing
area
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) Complex circuits needed to drive
display
Plus features:
Full colour range yet to be perfected
High display brightness
Wide viewing angle
Plasma
Well proved technology
Extensive application Plus features:
Low voltage operation Rugged technique
High reliability
Minus features:
Suitable for large displays
High power demand
High resolution and contrast
Low resolution
Wide viewing angle
Not yet suitable for large arrays
Minus features:
Liquid crystal display (LCDs) Expensive to produce
‘Wash out’ in high ambient lighting
Plus features:
Affected by low pressure
Low voltage and power needed
Restricted control of brightness
High resolution
Complex circuits needed
High contrast in high ambient light
Limited application in industry and
Non catastrophic failure.
transport

Resolution is an important display characteristic. This is the quality of providing

the viewer with the ability to discriminate between the discrete elements which
make up the display so that there is no confusion between the different symbols
and alphanumeric characters. It also applies to the characteristics of replication
and the ability to display, without confusion, complex shapes and relationships.
For example the finite minimum size of an LED affects the degree of resolution,
which is not always equal to that provided by other display technologies.
The majority of displays include symbols and alphanumeric characters and the
very nature of this technology provides a virtually unlimited range of shape, size,
proportions and colours. So what are typical values?
Line definition is an important characteristic of a CRT. A typical specification
calls for a line width with the primary colours, at 50 per cent brightness, to be
0.3 to 0.5 mm. Finer lines may need to be displayed but when symbol strokes are
Flight Decks and Cockpits

drawn at critical angles relative to the geometry of the shadow mask then inter-
ference patterns may appear.
An important specification item is the rate at which the display is refreshed or
renewed. At 50 Hz and less the eye becomes aware of a distracting flicker. There-
fore the majority of CRTs used for EIS applications have a refresh rate of 70 Hz.
Another critical factor is the need to limit variations in brightness between
symbols and parts of the display to less than 20 per cent.
Increasingly there is a demand for ‘video’ enhancement ofprimary flight displays
so that Low Light TV (LLTV), thermal imaging and Forward Looking Infra-Red
(FLIR) sensor data, particularly for military aircraft, can be combined with
computer-generated alphanumerics and symbology» A CRT can either use the
cursive, stroke-written technique or the raster, as with a domestic TV, or combine
the two. This is why a 1050 line colour raster TV display of the real world
combined with computer generated symbology is one of the standards at which
other display technologies must aim.
A CRT has high contrast as do the other displays. But the important criterion
here is the ability to maintain contrast in high ambient lighting conditions. For
example when flying at 30,000 feet and higher, direct sunlight is so intense that
it can ‘wash out’ a display. Colour CRTs can ‘wash out’ in high ambient light.
The LCD can also prove to be inadequate in these conditions because it has to
be backlit for use in low ambient light, such as at night, and this compromises
contrast performance in direct sunlight. Similarly the plasma display has poor read-
ability in direct sunlight.
LED displays are inherently rugged and reliable and their first cost has been
kept down by large quantity production. They provide a wide viewing angle and
high brightness without the need for high voltages. Large arrays of LEDs are
being developed but there remains the problem of speed of response which is too
low for dynamic displays.
As opposed to its ergonomic advantages and use as a datum for comparison, the
CRT has a number of disadvantages which directly affect cost of ownership.
CRTs are comparatively heavy and bulky, require a high voltage supply and high
power, they sometimes need forced air cooling, are vulnerable to shock and
vibration and incur high maintenance costs. By contrast an electroluminescent
display combines robustness with light weight and is a ‘flat panel’ shape; the power
consumption is much less than that of a CRT and it is inherently reliable. It also
requires little or no cooling. Furthermore the flat panel CRTs being developed
for the 1990s are less bulky and are lighter than the conventional tubes, which
can weigh as much as 8 kg. The thin tube CRT has been a design goal for many
years: not just for aviation use but for all types of vehicle and for commercial and
domestic applications. However, as for all alternatives to the long established
CRT, an important factor is the provision of graphics equal to if not better than
those of the shadow mask ‘deep’ CRT.
The thin tube display (Fig. 4.6) is an example of a completely new approach
to the generation of symbols and graphics. The designers of the thin tube CRT
claim that it is no longer necessary to design a flight deck around the volume
requirements of the conventional ‘deep’ fore and aft tube.
Liquid-crystal flat-panel displays of primary flight symbology and alphanumerics
have been developed. Rockwell-Collins, for example, plans to replace its CRT
displays with flat panel LEDs.
Once again using the CRT as the datum: the vulnerability to shock and damage
and the real probability of catastrophic failure weighs against the installation of
‘
 Avionics the only answer
Fig. 4.6 MEL thin tube DEFLECTION MODE
CRT MEL/Philips

Line
Deflection
Plates (X)

(\ z
Channel Plate \
Input \
is \
\
Frame Deflection \
Plates (Y) \
\
Screen \

mt
POS OO leet \

Mirror Electrode \ Vv 7

Side View Front View

just one CRT in a civil transport aircraft. This is why an EIS has at least two
CRTs and usually six so as to provide redundancy. The CRT of a military
aircraft's HUD is not duplicated because of the different rules concerning safety
and reliability which apply.
‘Graceful failure’ or ‘fail soft’ are attributes of systems which have been
designed so that in the event of the failure of an element or component the level
of redundancy allowed for in the design will ensure that there will not be a
complete loss of information.
A liquid crystal display can be designed so that it fails gracefully and not cata-
strophically whereas certain failures in a CRT can be catastrophic. One or more
of the in-parallel elements of an LED array can fail without affecting the others.
An electroluminescent display and a matrix of LEDs can also be arranged to fail
soft, as also can a plasma display.
The comparison table (Fig. 4.5) can be used to compare many different criteria,
some of which have been emphasised above. One of the most significant
conclusions to be drawn from the table, in the light of the technology of 1988,
is the failure of the gas plasma technique which at one time appeared to have an
assured future in aviation. It is important to consider the limitations of the plasma
display in order to emphasise the advantages of the other techniques. For example
among the factors which need to be overcome or improved are the following: it
requires an expensive production process; the symbol generating circuits are very
complex; the lack of interest for non-aviation applications does not encourage its
development; and its ergonomics, such as readability in high ambient light levels
and the limited range of brightness, have to be improved.
As with all avionics, first cost and cost of ownership of displays are important
considerations. First cost is a function of the specification which can range from
61
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

a simple display to a complex multi-function unit, such as an EIS. Simply this is

a matter of ‘you get what you pay for’. Cost of ownership, on the other hand, is
a far more complex factor. It includes such system characteristics as robustness
and reliability, and cost of repairs and spares.
In-service experience with a particular display technology is an important factor
when making a selection. This is important not only from the point of view of the
experience gained from the use of a particular type of display, from which its
reputation can be established, but from the consideration of cost. The greater and
more widespread the use of a specific display technology the lower the first cost.
This, when associated with the cost of ownership, is an important factor when
choosing from the different techniques, particularly for civil aircraft. However, an
advanced display technology may be selected for military aircraft even when it has
no well-proved extensive application. The CRT-based HUD was introduced into
military service in the 1960s because the operational need outweighed the lack
of previous application and experience.
Standing high in importance above the ergonomic characteristics and cost of
ownership are the requirements of the certificating authorities whose primary
concern, with civil transports, is safety. Air forces are concerned more with
survivability of equipment but, essentially, this is still founded on the principles
of safety.
The present trend of display technology development is towards the full colour
CRT, with raster (TV) overlaid by cursive (stroke-written) and liquid crystal
displays for large area primary displays.

Data highways The linking of all the principal flight deck display and control units by a digital
data bus or highway is one of the key concepts in modern avionics (see also
Chapter Three). The present civil aviation standard for data transmission between
systems is ARINC 429 (see Chapter Two).
ARINC 429 has served well for many years but its data-handling capacity is
now insufficient for the more advanced flight deck avionics about to enter airline
service. Therefore ARINC 629 has been introduced to meet the needs of a wide
range of systems including fibre optic data links.

DISPLAY AND CONTROL INPUT TECHNOLOGIES

Having reviewed some of the technologies used to produce information displays

on the flight deck and in the cockpit we can now consider the different methods
used for introduction of demands and answers into the various systems which
provide the visual part of the aircraft control interface.
A display can include many different types of data: some is informative, some
a response to a question, some an alert or warning. Informative displayed data is
likely to be presented whenever the pilot makes some change to the aircraft’s
systems. When the aircraft is under manual control the primary flight displays will
respond in step with the pilot’s control inputs. The most obvious display change
is that of the attitude director indicator and of the horizontal situation indicator
but other displays will also change to a greater or lesser degree. When the pilot
initiates changes to the aircraft’s configuration by selecting aerodynamic devices,
such as flaps, one or more sets of data and symbology will change.
Here we are relating major system changes to the different displays. The effects
these changes have on the operation of an aircraft’s avionics are described in
Chapters Five and Six. This chapter is concerned more with pilot inputs other
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 Display and control input technologies

than those applied through the primary controls. The FMS described in Chapter
Six (Fig. 6.6) has a control interface consisting of a matrix of keys below the CRT
display and a number of ‘soft’ keys around the edges of the CRT.
A range of input devices is available for effecting inputs to an electronic display.
For examples there are knobs, switches, keypads, touch screen, voice and, import-
antly, the data buses and wiring looms which provide both inputs and output to
each display.
A typical ergonomic standard for control knobs will specify not only ease of use,
by a gloved hand in military aircraft, a shape which cannot be confused with other
knobs if that could lead to an error, and a finish in a matt paint or self colour
such as grey. Switches may be designed to a similar set of ergonomic requirements.
More than likely both knobs and switches will be in a different colour from that
of the panel on which they are mounted.
These may seem somewhat obvious standards of design, but unfortunately the
path of aircraft cockpit design is littered with exceptions to good design.
Any lettering and numerals which have to form permanent markings on display
panels and on the input and selector devices must be clearly legible over a viewing
arc of 60 degrees.
Keypads need special attention to the size and shape of characters because the
pilot is sometimes presented with an array, on an FMS CDU, of30 or more keys.
Some of the keys may have a dual function so two characters have to be displayed.

Keys, switches and knobs The majority of avionic interface equipment includes some form of tactile input
device or devices for the use of the operator. The design of switches and knobs
usually conforms with the best available ergonomic standards which should take
into account the needs of the pilot, particularly when subjected to high G loads
during combat and when wearing heavy gloves.
The design of key pads requires special attention to ensure that the advantage
of their compactness is not negated by any difficulties the pilot might have in
selecting without error one key from a number of similar keys.
A typical key size is 0.5 inch, square set at a pitch of 0.75 inch. Along with
finger guards between the rows and columns of keys these dimensions have been
found suitable for use in combat aircraft cockpits. Because of the ‘gloved hand’
requirement the keys are usually designed to a particular operating force level so
that the pilot has some feedback through his fingers to indicate that the key has
been actuated. The civil flight deck requirement is not so demanding because of
the infrequent application of high G and the use of bare finger tips.

Touch screens All input controls used by a flight deck crew, other than verbal and eye and head
pointing, can be classified as tactile. Of these the touch screen CRT is a notable
example of combining an electronically generated display with the input controls.
The advantage of a touch screen is the simplification of display and control
relationships: a particular group of alphanumerics or even a symbol can be immedi-
ately ‘interrogated’ or responded to, i.e. YES or NO, by the touch of a finger.
There are four principal touch technologies. These are: scanning infra red (IR);
resistive screen overlay; capacitance overlay; and surface acoustic wave. The last,
however, has not been developed to the same extent as the other techniques. Each
of these has one thing in common: they form part of the CRT screen.
One ‘touch’ technique uses the interruption of an infra-red field across the
front of the display screen. When the pilot’s finger penetrates the field, a ‘touch’
is detected. uy

63
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

With the resistive overlay type of CRT there is a glass substrate over the display
screen. By touching the surface, which alters the resistance, the system is activated.
A glass substrate is also used with the capacitance overlay. When the user
touches the screen the change in capacitance is measured and the location of the
touch is defined.
With another technique surface acoustic waves are transmitted through a glass
substrate. When the pilot touches the substrate to activate the system the change
in energy is measured and the location of the touch is detected.

Comparisons There are advantages and disadvantages to each touch input method. Each can
be assessed on the basis of: resolution, speed of response, image quality, environ-
mental resistance, and reliability.
Resolution. This is an important factor in any system of communication. The
cockpit and flight deck interfaces are no exception. Whatever method is used to
display and select data, including the touch screen, the resolution must enable the
users to discriminate without ambiguity or error between the different elements or
‘bits’ of data.
One of the design choices is between ‘coarse’ and ‘fine’ resolution. As an exam-
ple a ‘coarse’ touch screen may have a matrix of 256 x 256 discrete points. A
‘fine’ screen might have 4096 x 4096 touch points. :
The resolution, or density points per unit of screen area, depends on the size
of the display, the ‘touch’ technology and on the capacity of the computer and
the sophistication of the software.
For example, resolution in infra-red touch systems is expressed as the amount
of space between each ‘touch element’. Physical resolution of an infra-red system
could be 0.25 inch from the centre of one element to the centre of the next.
The physical resolution of a surface acoustic wave system is approximately 0.03
inch between reflectors, but with software techniques resolution can be increased.
Speed of response. Resistive overlay, infra-red, and surface acoustic wave tech-
niques provide nearly instantaneous sensor responses. Capacitance overlays are
slower because of the time taken to store and measure changes in capacitance.
The importance of response time depends on the application: graphics require
a fast response whereas menu selection need not have such a fast response.

Image quality. Display systems which require a glass substrate on the screen
result in some visual obstruction between the viewer and the display. Some overlays
can reduce the light transmitted from the display by as much as 50 per cent.
Surface acoustic wave systems have higher transmissivity than resistive or
capacitance overlays. The infra-red technology is based on a matrix of sensors
which frame the screen and do not affect the light transmitted. Infra-red light is
invisible, therefore the pilot’s visual path is not degraded. At the same time the
colour and sharpness of the CRT video image is maintained.
Environmental resistance. A touch system must withstand environmental conditions
which would otherwise degrade its performance. Capacitance systems may be
affected by moisture and static from the user’s hands or may not be activated if
touched by a non-conductor such as a gloved hand. Variations in the pilot’s body
capacitance also have to be allowed for.
Infra-red systems use solid-state components, not electro-mechanical parts
which can corrode or fail. Furthermore, these can withstand temperature extremes,
as well as exposure to the elements. However, special techniques are needed if
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 Flight deck systems

the system is used in bright sunlight. Infra-red systems can meet stringent civil and
military requirements and be completely sealed against corrosive atmospheres and
liquids.

Reliability. In general, touch systems are rugged and reliable with few parts
subjected to user operation. Since the touch action is integrated with the display,
damage or loss from a failed input device, such as a switch, is minimised. Overlay
systems on a CRT can operate without loss of effectiveness over a wide range of
temperature and humidity.
Infra-red touch systems in particular can operate over a large range of shock,
vibration, and chemical exposure.

Direct voice input (DVI) (see The major aviation nations are spending vast sums on developing practical and
also Chapter Eleven) effective DVI systems. For example the Royal Aerospace Establishment in the UK,
working with Marconi Defence Systems and GEC Avionics has, like other estab-
lishments, demonstrated that humans may make fewer mistakes using DVI compared
with using an alphanumeric keyboard when entering commands and requests into
a computer-based avionic system.
DVI provides a method of matching two parallel-processors; the digital avionics
and the human brain. The latter constructs, in micro-seconds, complex concepts,
but then has to translate them into serial, and therefore slower, inputs to the
control interface using eye and hand coordination. Therefore this process is one
of parallel operations converted to serial operations which are then operated on
by the parallel processing potential of the avionics. DVI, even though it employs
serial speech data, can still improve both the speed and accuracy of the pilot input
processes.
The speech recognition systems of the late 1980s incorporate personalised
templates. These allow the systems to respond to the particular and unique charac-
teristics of each pilot’s voice. These recognisers can accept and use contextual
inputs relating to the flight plan or mission, systems and general flight information.
Speech recognition systems have to operate against the wide spectrum of back-
ground noise experienced in an aircraft cockpit or flight deck.
DVI is used to select, among other things, multi-function display formats,
navigational aids and approach and landing parameters. It can also be used to
input commands and to interrogate both the navigation and communication systems.

FLIGHT DECK SYSTEMS

There have been a number of evolutionary steps between the electro-mechanical

instruments and the ‘glass’, i.e. electronic display dominated, cockpit. The use of
LEDs, for example, to enhance the overall performance of primary flight instru-
ments such as the ADI and the HSI. Perhaps the most important development in
the last decade has been the integration of control and display systems along with
the increasing application of CRT colour displays. Radio navigation, such as the
radio magnetic indicator (RMI) and its integration with inertial navigation (IN)
are steps toward the present flight management systems (FMS). These in turn have
been developed to a high level of sophistication and are now integrated with the
automatic flight guidance system (AFGS) of which the A320 systems are important
examples.

Flight management The flight management system was one of the more important systems introduced
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 Flight Decks and Cockpits

in the 1980s to improve the flight deck control interface and to reduce crew work-
load. It is now a prominent feature of the flight deck of the AIRBUS, MD88,
B757 and 767 and similar aircraft types.
As mentioned earlier flight deck design has rapidly moved ahead; particularly
in the last ten years. Few instruments, few sets of controls and few systems are
designed to operate as discrete elements of an aircraft. They may be designed to
‘stand-alone’ so as to be unaffected by the problems of other systems, such as
power supply failure, but they must act in concert with the majority of other
systems.
Figure 4.1 is a simplified diagram of the flight deck avionics of a transport type
aircraft.
It is important to note that few of the systems included in Fig. 4.1 act only as
an input or output device. The majority both provide and accept information for
processing. This is why the order in which the individual systems are described
can only be arbitrary.

Flight management system The flight management system is one of the first to be initiated by the crew because
methodology some of the input data, as will be described, is used during flight briefing, and
therefore we can use this as the starting point.
The control and display unit of an FMS (Chapter Six, Fig. 6.6) provides the
pilots with alphanumerics and symbology by which they can verify the essential
details of the flight, make changes to the flight plan, i.e. manage the flight and,
if need be, select simulations of alternative flight plans.
At all times when the crew is not actually controlling the aircraft by hand, i.e.
operating the primary controls and the engine controls, they use the FMS control
and display units as the principal interface with the aircraft.
The facility to select the next waypoint or series of waypoints, vertical flight
profile and optimum airspeed and engine settings, enables the pilots to ‘fly’ the
aircraft through the control and selector keys of the CDU.
Therefore, the CDU of the FMS is, in effect, a miniature flight deck with
fingertip control. On the face of this unit, 12 x 8 inches, is all the visual display
data and all the input controls. Therefore its design imposes a number of special
ergonomic requirements: the ability to see without ambiguity and the ability to
select and command without ambiguity.
It is a fact of aviation history that this revolution in flight deck design has been
introduced into service with few ergonomic problems. Both monochrome and multi-
colour CRTs are used in FMS CDUs.
The description of an FMS can be simplified if we consider first the basic
features of a typical scheduled passenger flight in an aircraft not fitted with an
FMS. This will highlight the way in which an FMS can enhance safety, efficiency
and reduce crew workload.
The flight deck crew report for duty at least one hour before departure in order
to complete the flight briefing which includes a lot of ‘paperwork’. The briefing
room staff will usually have ready a prepared computer-generated flight plan which
specifies routeings, flight altitudes and radio navigational facilities as well as emerg-
ency diversions to alternative airfields. An important part of a flight plan is the
relationship selected between fuel load and revenue load. This can be varied to
account for availability of destination and alternative runways as well as naviga-
tional aids, some of which may be inactive.
The ‘briefing’ computer can also hold data relating to individual members of
the crew so that an immediate print-out is available to the captain from which he
‘
 Flight deck systems
can instantly check the qualifications and experience of a member of the crew. For
example: is the second pilot fully qualified to take over should the captain collapse
and if the aircraft has to be diverted to an airfield in limited visibility conditions?
But when the crew leave the flight briefing they leave the computer behind if
their aircraft does not have such modern systems.
Other data to which the crew must have access relates to the forecast mete-
orological conditions and how this may require changes to the fuel load, the
routeing and the flight levels at each sector of the flight.
The greater part of the data needed by the crew both before and during a flight
is contained in route charts and airway manuals. An important group of charts
come under the heading of SIDs and STARs. These acronyms refer to standard
instrument departures and standard terminal approach routes. They are detailed
charts showing the precise headings, minimum or maximum speeds, altitudes,
frequencies of navigational aids and other data needed so that aircraft depart from
and arrive at airport terminal areas along defined paths, both horizontally and
vertically. In other words, ATC establishes three-dimensional paths, four-dimen-
sional if time and speed are included, to which the crew of each aircraft must, in
the absence of alternative instructions from ATC, adhere.
At one time the crew of an aircraft operating a route which included a number
of landings and take-offs and therefore a complex series of legs, had to carry flight
bags crammed with airways and airfield data and charts as well as the aircraft’s
flight and performance manuals.
On reaching the aircraft the crew has to perform a considerable number of
internal and external checks of the aircraft and its many systems. Before the
introduction of electronic centralised aircraft monitors (ECAM) and engine indi-
cating and crew alert system (EICAS), the crew had to exercise a very disciplined
and sequenced checking procedure to ensure that the aircraft was 100 per cent
fit to fly. Printed check lists could easily lead to one particular item being missed,
just as an external visual check of the position and condition of equipment could
miss a vital item.
By contrast with the above procedures an FMS equipped aircraft reduces
considerably the amount of pre-flight ‘paperwork’ on the part of the crew.
In other words, much of the pre-flight briefing data is already on board the
aircraft stored in the FMS data base which can be called up through the CDU.
As described in Chapter Six, the information in the data base is updated at
intervals.
The primary function of the CDU is to act as the interface between the aircraft
and the crew so that the latter can select optimised flight profiles, i.e. the best
route, the minimum time or the minimum fuel consumption between selected
waypoints. The CDU can be used to command completely automatic control of
the aircraft or semi-automatic with varying degrees of pilot involvement including
full manual control.
The CDUs, because there are always at least two, are the ‘tip of the iceberg’,
made up of a number of different avionic systems integrated and working in
concert. The ‘iceberg’ is represented by the architectural schematic shown in
Fig. 4.1.
In other chapters reference has been made to data bus technology and to the
important role this performs in linking disparate avionics.
As Fig. 4.1 clearly shows, an FMS and its CDUs are connected via the data
bus system to the majority of an aircraft’s information, control and sensing units.
The present data bus standard is ARINC 429.
67
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.7 Records in data base Record How identified and defined
memory Microelectrics
in aircraft systems Identifier ICAO region,+latitude and longitude, frequency,
Radio-nav aids:
(E. H. J. Pallett) magnetic declination, class (VOR, DME, etc.), company
VOR, DME,
VORTAC, ILS, defined figure of merit,* elevation for DME, ILS category,
TACAN localizer bearing
Waypoints Each waypoint defined by its ICAO region, identifier, type
(en-route, terminal), latitude and longitude
En-route airways Identified by route identifier, sequence number, outbound
magnetic course
Airports Each identified by ICAO four-letter code, latitude and
longitude, elevation, alternate airports
Runways Each identified byICAO identifier, number, length, heading,
threshold latitude and longitude, final approach fix identifier,
threshold displacement
Airport procedures Each identified by its ICAO code, type (SID, STAR, profile
descent, ILS, RNAV), runway number/transition, path and
termination code
Company routes Origin airport, destination airport, route number, via code
(SID, airway, direct, STAR, profile descent, approach), via
identifier (SID, name, airway identifier, etc.), cruise altitude,
cost index ;

* The figure of merit is a number assigned to each navigational aid to indicate the
maximum distance at which it can be tuned.

The operation of an FMS is described in detail in Chapter Six. Figure 4.7

shows the principal sets of data stored in the FMS computer memories. This table
emphasises the comprehensive nature of an FMS. The total data held in memory
represents the contents of many flight and operations manuals as well as infor-
mation to be found in the manuals of air traffic control and the publications of
regulatory authorities, such as ICAO.
The design of a CDU has to be related to its importance as one of the primary
control and information areas on the flight deck. As already mentioned, during
some flight modes the CDUs are the primary interface between crew and aircraft.
Despite the many different functions and sets of information data available for
an FMS, modern control and display technology provides a multi-function inter-
face within a comparatively small area. The comparison is, of course, with the total
area which would be needed if all the systems with which an FMS interfaces had
their own individual CDUs. Fortunately, the multi-function facility afforded by
modern avionics enables a limited number of display and control elements to be
concentrated in a small area.
Keeping to the methodology of starting with a display, there is essentially just
one. This is a monochrome or colour CRT which takes up the upper half of the
CDU face. On this are displayed different ‘pages’ of selectable data stored in the
FMS memory.
Cursively generated symbols and alphanumerics are presented at, typically, 24
characters for each of the 14 lines. Different sizes of characters are used to
indicate the mode or status of the information. For example the smaller characters
are used to indicate default or predicted values for the different parameters. The
larger characters indicate data changed or selected by the crew. Colour CRT
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 Flight deck systems

display can obviously increase the range of importance or status available for
different sets of parameters or flight modes.
Moving from the display to the selector key panel, both the two principal FMS
systems of the Airbus, for example, one by Smiths Industries the other by Sperry,
depending on the operating airline, have a common keypad function. The function,
alphabet and numeral keys are arranged in accordance with the best available
ergonomic principles. The following list will help to explain the relationship
between display and controls for a number of typical flight modes.

Select or return to: Meaning

PPOS Present position
DATA Data index pages for:
Lateral and vertical performance
Key waypoints
Sensors
Navigation
Aircraft configuration
History
NEXT PHASE Display next leg of flight plan
PERE Performance page
DIR Direct entry of flight plan revisions
FUEL Fuel pages
AIRPORTS Next airport page on leg
HDG Headings to be flown automatically
FIX Check for update position
START Start data pages
ENG OUT Engine and performance pages
SEC F-PLAN Secondary flight plan
EXEC Promote a temporary plan to active status
MSG Acknowledge message displayed
CLEAR Delete scratch pad

Electronic attitude direction Complementing the CDUs of the FMS are the electronic primary flight displays
of attitude and navigation with which the majority of civil transports of the 1980s
are equipped.
The electronic attitude director display (Fig. 4.8) can present over 25 separate
parameters, indications and legends in the form of symbols, alphanumerics and sky
and ground colours. In addition to the blue, cyan and the yellow for the sky and
ground hemispheres, white, green, red and magenta are used to differentiate
between functions and changes in status.
This is a limited display compared with a full primary flight display of an EIS.
However when compared with the electro-mechanical ADI of Fig. 4.3 it empha-
sises the significant increase in the amount of data which can be conveyed to the
pilot.

Electronic primary flight The electronic ADI leads on to the EIS which is, as its title suggests, a complete
display electronic system using two or more display units to convey all the information
required by the pilot.
In its most usual form an EIS consists of six colour CRT displays. The two
display units immediately in front of each pilot provide primary flight and navigation
data and graphics. By ‘primary’ is meant aircraft attitude, speed (in both knots and
Mach No.), vertical speed, heading, altitude (both radio and barometric) as well
as limiting values and warnings. The navigation display shows aircraft plan position
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.8 Electronic attitude FCS mode test FCS armed vertical FCS armed lateral
director Rockwell Pass
a (yellow) or fail mode white mode (white)
GS VNAV ALTS VOR NAV B/C
Collins (red) indicates result
of FCS mode test (two armed vertical (one armed lateral
result shown in FCS
modes may be mode may be displayed)
active vertical mode
displayed)
line.

FCS active vertical

mode (green) Radio altitude

PIT ALT VS 2500 is maximum

GS MACH ALTS
VNAV IAS GA

FCS active lateral

mode (green) Marker beacon
HDG ROL OM (Cyan)
NAV DR (WHITE) M (Yellow)
(White)

AUTOPILOT ENGAGE
Control transferred
Lor R indicates which to cross-side DCP
FCS is driving (yellow)
autopilot (green when
engaged, yellow when
disengaged) Decision height set
999 is maximum
Decision height
annunciator (yellow)

Cross-side attitude
Pitch and roll source (yellow)
|
attitude comparator
warning (yellow)

relative to navigational aids such as radio beacons and approach and landing
systems. It also displays the weather radar picture, the aircraft’s track relative to
waypoints, wind speed and direction and all other data needed to control the
aircraft in time and space.
The remaining two display units are used for aircraft systems management such
as Engine Indication and Crew Alert System.
The primary flight display (Fig. 4.9) is a typical example of a modern colour
CRT EIS. The usual power supply is 115V 400Hz with a power consumption of
about SOW which means that forced air cooling is not necessary.

Weather and lightning The weather radar display was one of the first examples of a production standard
display CRT on the flight deck of civil aircraft. Prior to about 1955 the CRT was usually
to be found only in military aircraft as part of the radar navigation and bomb-
aiming systems.
The advent of the digital computer resulted in a considerable improvement in
the quality of a weather radar display by better discrimination between the
different areas of precipitation and turbulence.
The digital computer has also been used to detect, measure and locate lightning
discharges. This information is now combined with the visual display of precipi-
tation and turbulence. This type of CRT display maximises the advantages of the
colour CRT. Turbulence shows on the screen as a solid blue integrated with the
green, yellow, red and magenta to indicate areas of increasing precipitation.
This easily interpretable display clearly shows the pilot the position and inten-
sity of rainfall, the location and number of lightning discharges per minute and
the areas to be avoided.

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 Flight deck systems

Fig. 4.9 Primary flight display

on an electronic
instrument system
(EIS), colour
CRT Smiths
Industries

Civil head-up display From the inception in the early 1960s of the head-up display (HUD) for fighter-
attack aircraft research was also directed at possible civil aircraft application.
Essentially there are no major problems in mounting a HUD on the flight deck
of a transport aircraft, and from 1970 onward a number of HUD installations were
evaluated. The comparatively slow advance of HUDs for civil aircraft, compared
with military systems, is the result not so much of technical problems but of a lack
of internationally agreed operational requirements. In other words, what is the role
of the HUD and what is its potential contribution to improving the safety and
efficiency of transport aircraft? Also to be considered is the cost which, like all
large avionic systems, can run into six figures.
Even with an automatic landing system a point is reached during an approach
and landing at which the pilot has to take over manual control of the aircraft.
The transition from monitoring the progress of the automatic system to looking
forward through the flight deck windows is a critical time. Transferring the eye
point from the instrument panels to the view ahead has always posed problems even
with a non-automatic approach when following the commands of the attitude
director (AD) during an ILS approach.
Although there are many different ideas about the way in which an approach
and landing should be controlled the one common factor is the pilot’s visual
problem. The pilot has to assimilate rapidly the essential cues needed from the
approach and runway lights and from the complex, constantly changing, perspec-
tive of the airfield and its features.
The pilot of a fighter-attack aircraft can fly by reference to alphanumeric data
and symbology displayed in his forward line of sight by the HUD so that there
is no need to transfer the eye point from the ‘outside’ scene to ‘inside’ information
during critical phases of a flight. This ‘head up’ concept is obviously applicable
to the transport aircraft flight deck but a HUD used only during the take-off and
landing phase is a very expensive ‘passenger’ for the rest of the flight.
Among a number of companies which have developed head-up display systems
i

71
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

for civil aircraft, such as Thomson CSF, Hughes, Kaiser, Sundstrand, Smiths
Industries and GEC Avionics is Flight Dynamics Inc which developed its HGS
(Head-up Guidance System) in 1986. This isa HUD whose computer, software
and display symbology and alphanumerics, is dedicated to giving the pilot guidance
during the approach and landing phase with the important feature of windshear
warning and corrective action.
The objective of this system is the safe lowering of landing minima below the
50 ft decision height and runway visual range (RVR) of 700 ft (Category 111A).
Just as the automatic landing systems of the 1960s were introduced to maintain
scheduled operations in adverse visibility conditions so the HGS is intended to
free civil operators of the handicap of airports which have a significant number
of fog-bound days — Seattle, for example, and, also, provide vital guidance which
will enable the pilot to react quickly to windshear and to take the most effective
action.
In function and components the HGS is similar to a military HUD (Fig. 4.13);
it has the same holographic combining glass set at an angle and intercepting the
pilot’s normal forward line of sight. The principal physical difference is the
mounting of the display unit under the flight deck roof and not, as in a fighter
aircraft, at the top of the primary instrument panel.
The potential use of HGS must be seen in relation to automatic flight manage-
ment systems, such as the fly-by-wire system in the A320. These not only prevent
an aircraft exceeding its safe flight envelope or stalling but also manage the
aircraft’s potential energy so as to offset the adverse effects of windshear and line
squall conditions during an approach to land.

Continuous monitoring Flight data acquisition and health and usage monitoring systems, which record a
number of operating parameters against real time, provide both the flight crew and
the maintenance specialists with data, in digital form, which can give an immediate
indication of an adverse trend or, over a finite time, ‘print out’ patterns and trends
so that remedial action can be taken to prevent component failures.
As a flight deck or cockpit display these systems now provide an important read-
out of data from which the pilot can gain assurance that all is well with vital
systems, such as the transmission system of a helicopter or a warning that a
component or system is showing signs of accelerated wear.
In Chapter Six reference is made to Utilities Systems Management (USM) and
the way in which such systems provide data to the avionic data buses and thence
to the cockpit displays. Figure 6.17 is an example of a typical fuel system display.
The data handled by the USM system is used to ‘drive’ one of the MPCDs to
show clearly and without ambiguity the amount of fuel in each tank and the open
or closed positions of every valve in the complete system.

Colour for displays Mention has already been made of the facility of using different colours on an
electronic display, such as a CRT, to highlight and differentiate among the various
sets of data. A typical allocation is:
WHITE for scales and present information;
GREEN for present information needing contrast and of a lower priority than WHITE:
also used for pointers and selection titles;
MAGENTA for commands, deviation pointers, active flight paths, and ‘fly to’;
cyaN for sky background colour on an ADI format, for low priority data and for
selections made by the crew;

72
 Flight deck examples
AMBER for lubber lines (datums), aircraft symbol, cautionary and transitory data;
YELLOW for ground background colour on an ADI format, caution and adverse
trend data, failure ‘flags’, limits and alert indications and fault messages;
RED for warnings and limits.

Among the manufacturers of electronic displays, particularly for EIS and ECAM,
there are slight variations of the above list.

Instrument lighting Both the flight deck and the cockpit are control interfaces which will be subjected
to extreme variations in ambient light level. Not just the variation between sunlight
at low altitudes and the fierce light at 30,000 feet and higher but the sudden
changes as the aircraft flies in and out of cloud. Therefore modern electronic
displays usually have light level sensors which are used to control automatically
the display brightness in accordance with the ambient light level. The response
characteristics of the sensors are matched to those of the human eye.

FLIGHT DECK EXAMPLES

At one time it was usually possible to tell a medium size business/corporate jet
from a large airliner just by looking at the number and type of flight deck instru-
ments and equipment. The former was unlikely to have such systems as these were
within the domain of the big wide body and long-range types. Today and for the
future, the suite of flight deck interface control and display equipment of the small
jet is little different in number and type from that of, say, an Airbus A320. Both
have dual AFCS, EICAS or ECAM, multi EIS displays (such as CRTs), and
dual FMS. These systems are monitored and controlled through a number of
different keypads and display their information on, say, six colour CRT display
units.
Therefore we can select a specific aircraft type to represent general flight deck
practice for all passenger jet aircraft. The A320 is a recent example which serves
this purpose.

A320 Airbus flight deck The design philosophy adopted for the flight deck of the A320 provided a clearly
defined set of requirements. The majority of these were achievable only by using
avionic techniques to the full.
The principal feature of the flight deck and one which dominates the overall
design and layout is the side-stick controller: one to the outboard side of each
pilot. Once the decision had been reached to go for ‘fly-by-wire’ primary control
using side-stick controllers in place of the conventional wheel there was no longer
any need to worry about obstruction of the pilots’ view of the principal instrument
panels.
The primary display of information takes place on six colour CRT units. These
are used for both the electronic flight instrumentation systems and the electronic
centralised aircraft monitor. The pilots can ‘dedicate’ four of the six display units -
to either EIS or ECAM. In addition there are two other CRT displays. These
are part of the two multi-purpose control and display units which, in conjunction
with the flight control unit, command the automatic flight control and navigation
systems (Figs. 4.10, 4.11).
The A320, like some of its contemporaries, has the CRT displays located in
prime positions on the main panel in front of the pilots. The CRT units are also
given responsibility for displaying all types of data ranging from primary, such as
‘

73
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.10 Airbus A320 flight

deck, the world’s
first airliner to go
into production flight and navigation, through engine and systems to lower order systems, such as
with side-stick cabin environment.
controllers and
integrated Of course not all the panel area of the A320 flight deck is dedicated to CRT-
displays Airbus EIS/ECAM There are a number of ‘stand-by’ conventional instruments and also
Industrie of great importance are the numerous levers, switches, keypads and other devices
through which the crew controls and interrogates the different aircraft systems.
Many of these controls or input devices have some form of illuminated legend or
indication of status. In the A320 the overhead panel is designed to the ‘lights out’
philosophy. That is, unless a system requires attention, is failing or has failed there
are no lights or other indications. This philosophy, which is now adopted by most
aircraft designers, is also part of the concept of ‘the need to know’. Unless it is
essential for the safe and efficient conduct of the flight the pilots should not be
overburdened with unnecessary information.
One of the most significant effects of ECAM and its associated systems on flight
deck design is the opportunity it affords for two-pilot operation of the aircraft.
Earlier generations of transport aircraft are characterised by a minimum crew of
three. The flight deck controls and displays were arranged for three crew positions
of which the third, the flight or systems engineer, monitored a large panel of
instruments and controls. Such panels were usually arranged so that the controls

74
 Flight deck examples

Master warning It__ Side stick priority It

Master caution It
Stby ATT EFIS CTL
Auto land It
ee ad Stby ASI LDG GEAR IND
GPWS It Stby ALT AUTO BRK/A-SKID CTL
Air outlet :
i >
———— 4 = a : 7 O 5) | —[S[==
i
aen C)

EFIS EFIS CC.a, EFIS ( EFIS

Ey ee

CTL cr ya

PFD | ND warnings ND PFD

-
: ral
vz,y
| :
a ae ie ECAM

Systems \|
LE |__| 7 \ Optional
sliding table
Chart holder Optional Clock LDG
Loudspeaker metric ALT GEAR BRK PRESS
CHEER
DME/VOR Optional ADF RMI
DDRMI
—-» Possible exchange
of images

Fig. 4.11 Airbus A320, layout for individual systems formed a schematic diagram with controls and associated
of main instrument indicators close together.
panel Airbus
The advent of the digital computer and, in turn, such systems as ECAM which
Industrie
were programmed to indicate the condition or status of a system only when
requested or automatically display a caution or warning message, made practicable
the two-pilot only flight deck. The computer now performs the task of monitoring
and reporting on the condition of all systems and all their elements and components
— a task once performed by a human operator (Fig. 4.12).

Fig. 4.12 Airbus A320,

electronic
centralised aircraft FUEL KG
monitor 1500
(ECAM) Airbus 2300 3000
Industrie
Primary TOTAL 6800 Fuel quantity
engine indication
indications ELAES

Flaps/slats
position
F. USED indication
3200 KG

LDG INHIB

Landin aM
LDG GEAR APU BLEED
yeas IGNITION LDG LT
SIGNS
SPLRS
FLAPS

75
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

MILITARY COCKPITS

The interface equipment of the cockpits of fighter/attack and air superiority

fighters uses display and control technologies which are similar or common to those
in civil aircraft.
The major differences between a civil or transport aircraft flight deck and the
cockpit of a military aircraft are, for the latter: controls and displays for tactical
and weapon-aiming and selection systems; controls for the pilot’s environment and
safety, such as anti G-loc (G. induced loss of consciousness) and ejection seats,
controls and selectors, such as input keys, designed for operation by the pilot’s
gloved hand and when subjected to high G forces; target and real world enhance-
ment to enable a flight to continue in reduced visibility including the acquisition
of and aiming at targets irrespective of the visibility or the location of waypoints
and targets hidden from the pilot’s direct line [Link].
Therefore there are a number of avionic systems which, in general, are peculiar
to military aircraft. However, many of the avionic techniques applied, such as the
use of CRT and solid-state displays, direct voice input (DVI) and some electro-
optical systems, as we have seen, are also applicable to civil aircraft. Perhaps the
most important differences are not in the particular avionic technologies used but
in their function. In a civil aircraft the avionics are there to ensure safety, regu-
larity and efficiency of aircraft operation; in a military aircraft the avionics have,
to some extent, the same overall requirements but, more importantly, they are there
to ensure that the total weapon system gets to the target and completes the sortie.
It is a difference of priorities.

Head up display and helmet Until the successful integration of optics and electronics which resulted in the
mounted sights modern electronic head up display, in the early 1960s, the pilot of a fighter or
fighter/attack aircraft had to make frequent and large eye movements between the
view ahead and the instruments inside the cockpit. At 600 knots and close to the
ground, two or three seconds are needed in which to switch the direction of eye
attention, the point of regard, and re-focus from the target to the instruments. At
that time the aircraft will have travelled 3000 feet. A similar eye adjustment problem
occurs in air-to-air combat.
Therefore, the increased performance of jet aircraft had to be matched by
electro-optical systems which allowed the pilot to fly ‘head up’ without taking his
attention from the view ahead.
The electronic HUD, (Figs 4.13, 4.14, 4.15) has an importance far greater than
its size might suggests. It is now the focus of cockpit design. The combination of
a computer, a CRT, an optical projection system and the combining glass projects
symbols and alphanumerics into the pilot’s forward line-of-sight.
Because a HUD system is computer-based a number of different programmes
can be accommodated. Depending on the selection made by the pilot, using the
up-front control panel the HUD displays either: flight and navigation data, used
when cruising to or from the target; or attack data, used when aiming the aircraft
as weapon system; or gun and missile aiming during aerial combat. Within reason
there is no limit to the different formats of symbols and alphanumerics.
The computing elements of a HUD derive their inputs from the aircraft’s air
data and inertial systems so as to display airspeed, altitude, heading, vertical speed,
attitude, angle-of-attack, gun, missile and bomb aiming and release, and so on. All
or some of these can be selected by the pilot to match the immediate phase of the
sortie.

76
 Military cockpits
Fig. 4.13 Electronic head-up
display (HUD) for
General Dynamics
F-16 GEC
Avionics

aee®
Lo wt
*
pears
=* Be
Ay
*

= Ghaee
-

uth

The electronically generated information is seen by the pilot superimposed on

the view ahead of the real world. In addition the HUD images can be combined
with a Low Light TV (LLTV) or Infra-red (IR) picture of the view ahead.
Of course, the quality of the HUD is only as good as the software programmes
and the efficiency of the CRT, the optical path of the lens system and the
combining glass. Holographic techniques used in the manufacture of the combining
glass now provide a significant improvement in its reflective properties. A thin layer
sandwiched between glass is treated by a laser to form an optical interference
pattern. This layer only reduces the transmissivity of the light rays between the
pilot’s eyes and the view ahead by 10 per cent. The alphanumerics and symbology
can be seen clearly superimposed on the pilot’s view of the outside world.
Figure 4.15 is an example of a typical set of HUD information. As mentioned,
different amounts and types of data can be projected into the pilot’s forward line

77
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Combining glasses of
the HUD displaying
alphanumerics and
symbols

Up-front
control panel
_- of the HUD

ulti-function,

Fig. 4.14 Cockpit layout of of sight. In practice the data is selectable in groups to match specific flight modes
AV-8B Harrier so as not to ‘clutter up’ the display with unnecessary information.
showing
The electro-optical technique used for the head up display has been applied
HUD McDonnell
Douglas Corpn. to the helmet mounted sight (Fig. 4.16) so that the pilot can see computer generated
symbology and alphanumerics in his line of sight in whichever direction he is
looking. This type of sight is a compact version of the fixed HUD unit and is
mounted on the eyebrow part of the pilot’s helmet. It is an important example of
modern avionics. If the pilot moves his head so that he is looking directly at a target
then a helmet position detecting system feeds data to the weapon-aiming and
navigation computers. If the pilot then presses a ‘Mark’ key on the up-front control
panel, or if using DVI, says ‘Mark’ the computer stores the location in its data
base for future reference. Or, as the pilot selects and speaks ‘Shoot’ the missiles
are released and directed to the target.

Multi-purpose colour As we have seen the HUD rationalises the vital sets of information needed by the
displays (Fig. 4.17) pilot for particular flight modes. The HUD cannot provide all the data needed
for all phases of a flight and therefore the pilot has to use the conventional ‘head
down’ instruments. Until recently these were usually of the pointer-on-dial and
numeral counter types. These instruments had to be scanned to ensure that critical
78
 Military cockpits

Alphanumerics and symbols

displayed on the combining glasg of the
_Neadeup display.

nal display
eral soft

a 25)

Fig. 4.15 Cockpit layout of data was not missed, and furthermore they did not ‘interface’ effectively with the
AV-8B simulator increasing number of avionic systems, such as the HUD, which from the mid 1970s
showing HUD became a feature of military aircraft. Many of the conventional instruments used
display and image
of aircraft carrier analogue data processing and therefore required digital-to-analogue techniques
superstructure as an additional interface. Therefore it was logical that increasing use should be
McDonn ell Douglas made of the colour CRT displays, similar to the civil EIS, to improve both the
Corpn. quality of the interface and its efficiency. —
The multi-purpose colour display (MPCD) is the companion to the HUD. It
gives the pilot sets of selectable data and formats, including that of the HUD itself
if need be, and so provides the primary ‘head down’ display in the cockpit. The
ability to select different sets of data on different CRTs provides both flexibility
of use and also a measure of redundancy for offsetting damage or failure.

Stealth The low level, nap of the earth, high speed approach to a target by an attack
aircraft depends on avionic computer systems requiring a number of inputs. Of
79
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.16 ‘Falcon Eye’ helmet

mounted display
system developed
for General
Dynamics F'-16
GEC Avionties

baal

these Doppler radar is one of the more important. But its use immediately alerts
the ground defence systems which can detect all forms of electronic emission from
an aircraft.
Therefore control and display systems have been developed which allow a
covert, ‘stealth-like’ approach to a target at minimum altitude.
The Ferranti PENETRATE is an autonomous system which has an electron-
ically stored profile of the terrain over which the aircraft has to fly in order to
reach the target. The system combines a radar altimeter, the range of which is
limited, and an inertial navigation unit with a three dimensional ‘model’ of the
terrain held in the computer memory. The data output from these ‘drives’ a head
up display and a head down display.
This is an example of a specialised avionics system which provides automatic
terrain following with an integrated display of data on the HUD and the head
80 ‘
 Military cockpits
Fig. 4.17 Multi-purpose
colour CRT = =.
display Smiths
Industries

5 282
$668 MAG.118 QooMIN
hae
= ed,

Wess

EERE
sR

down ‘map’ display (Fig. 4.18). The HUD information is similar to that described
earlier, with the addition of ‘highway in the sky’ graphics for the guidance of the
pilot.
The digital ‘map’ display shows terrain and topographical information on a high
brightness CRT. The ‘map’ data is derived from a data base which is inserted by
means of a portable data transfer module and in this respect is the equivalent of
the data insertion procedure for a civil flight management system. All the features
of a conventional map are included together with selectable colours, the ability
to delete unwanted information and, of course, zooming-in on a particular feature.
The PENETRATE display is a good example of the versatility of the modern
colour CRT. In this system a pilot can instantly see those zones over which the
aircraft must not be flown. An interesting feature is the facility for ‘shading’ those
areas where the aircraft will be hidden by the intervening high ground so that its
electronic emissions, such as IFF, radar and communication, can be used with less
chance of being detected.

LLTV, thermal imaging and Low light TV, thermal imaging and Forward Looking Infra-Red techniques,
FLIR described in Chapter Nine, provide important inputs to the cockpit displays of
military aircraft. These sensors enable aircraft to be flown safely at low altitude
81
 Flight Decks and Cockpits

Fig. 4.18 ‘Penetrate’ ORO ALEAH IeT

TT LOLI NN oe TIT
ceca ca lucas cea

electronic map
display Ferranti

ed *

—
—_ 8
a

: _—
— em

|
;RCON

in visibility conditions of starlight or when there is an overcast quarter moon. The

processed images can be displayed on the combining glass of the head-up display
with the television image overlaid on the real world with a magnification of unity.
A thermal imaging sensor can be used to provide additional information
presented on the head-up display.

Stand-by instruments Stand-by instruments are specified whenever there is a probability, however
remote, that the primary displays might fail or be damaged. The concept is that
of ‘get you home’ by providing an alternative and independent display of speed,
heading, attitude, vertical speed and altitude. Figure 4.19 is an example of three
solid-state, LED, air data displays for the B. Ae. Experimental Aircraft Programme.

The future (see also Chapter Without delving into the fanciful, there are a number of control and display tech-
Eleven.) nologies which will, with some certainty, have a significant effect on the design
and equipment of the future flight decks and cockpits.
If the pilot is to remain in the control loop, even in the most critical and
demanding phases of flight, and the workload is to be kept to an acceptable level,
then the avionics must provide a ‘real’ or artificial view of the world irrespective
of the visibility conditions.
The combination of electronic displays, fully automatic control and monitoring
systems and non-tactile, e.g. voice input, controls, is already changing the pilot’s
working environment. In addition the pilot associate concept will increasingly
82 ‘
 Bibliography

contribute to significant changes in the relationship between the pilot and the
aircraft.
A pilot associate computer is programmed with the knowledge and experience of
all the pilots who operate a particular type of aircraft on specific routes or, for
military aircraft, on specific operations. The pilot associate figuratively sits along-
side the pilot and prompts, advises, reminds and warns. Because it has microsecond
access to a vast fund of knowledge about the pilot, the route and its navigational
aids, it can provide the best of a number of options in the event of an emergency.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Airbus Industrie, 4320 Briefing for Pilots, 1986.

FT/MIN
xt000 Chorley, R. A. ‘Seventy Years of Flight Instruments and Displays,’ Royal
Aeronautical Society Third Folland Memorial Lecture, 1976.
Coombs, L. F. E. Aerospace & Defence Review, Smiths Industries plc, 1969-1989
‘Aircraft Ergonomics’, World Aerospace Profile, Sterling, 1986.
‘The Cockpit of the Year 2000’, MILTECH 7/86, 1986.
Hirst, M. ‘Avionics Analysed’,Air International, Jan. 83, Mar. 83, Jul. 83, Sept. 83,
Nov. 83, Feb. 84, Apr. 84.
Hurst, R. Pilot Error, Crosby Lockwood Staples, 1976.
Owen, C. A. Flight Operations, Granada, 1982.
Pallett, E. H. J. Microelectronics In Aircraft Systems, Pitman, 1985.
Smith,J.H. ‘Colour Multi-Function Displays For Aircraft’, Royal Institute of
Navigation, NAV87 paper, 1987.

Fig. 4.19 Light emitting

diode (LED) stand-
by instruments
Smiths Industries
 CHAPTER 5 FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEMS
IAN MOIR BSc, CEng, MIEE, MRAeS

Senior Multiplexing Systems Engineer Smiths Industries. Mr Moir undertook his

graduate training as an Engineering Officer in the Royal Air Force being awarded
a B Sc (Eng) 2nd Class Honours Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Service
in the Far East was followed by responsibility, at RAF Brize Norton, for first
line servicing of VC 10 and Belfast aircraft.
In 1970, in the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he took a post-graduate Course at
RAF College, Cranwell, having already been awarded an Air Training Corps
Flying Scholarship and the de Havilland Flying Trophy for the best pilot in
RAF Officer Cadet Entry (1965). ;
In 1972 he joined the RAF Project Team with responsibility for the digital
avionics system of the MRCA (Tornado) at British Aircraft Corporation (later
BAe) at Warton.
In the rank of Squadron Leader Mr Moir served at the Government
Communication Headquarters, Cheltenham, was Officer Commanding, Electron
Engineering Squadron, RAF Leuchars and the Ministry of Defence (Air)
Directorate of Tornado Engineering and Supply.
In 1980 he joined Smiths Industries, becoming involved in systems integration
using MIL-STD-1533B data bus hardware on the BAe Experimental Aircraft
Programme. From 1984 he has been Group leader of the Utilities Systems
Management Group.
Mr Moir has presented many Technical Papers at home and abroad and
written a number of Technical Articles. In 1979 he was awarded the RAF Strike
Command Smallwood Trophy for a submission on Electronic Warfare. He is a
Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Chartered Engineer and a Member
of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

PRINCIPLES OF FLIGHT CONTROL

As an introduction to the application of electronics to flight control systems it is

necessary to have a theoretical basis in order to be able to understand some of
the more sophisticated systems. The control axes of an aircraft are defined by the
convention of a right-handed orthogonal (mutually perpendicular to one another)
axis set. It is within the definition of such axes that the motion of the aircraft is
described and, of course, this needs to be adequately done before the control of
the aircraft is discussed.
The right-handed axis set used is shown in Fig. 5.1. The three axes originate
O at point O and are defined by the lines Ox, Oy, and Oz:

Fig. 5.1 Right-handed Ox defines the Longitudinal Axis — the direction in which the aircraft flies and
aircraft axis set in which the aircraft propulsive and drag forces act.

84 4
 Principles offlight control

Oy defines the Lateral Axis — the direction in which sideslip or lateral forces
act.
Oz defines the Normal Axis — the direction in which the aircraft lift and
weight forces act.

An aircraft may also manoeuvre or rotate around each of these major axes:
The aircraft rolls by rotating around the Ox or longitudinal axis. The control
surfaces which can cause the aircraft to roll are the ailerons on a conventional
aircraft; the elevons on a delta aircraft (Vulcan); tailerons where aileron and
elevator functions are combined (Tornado); fore-planes on a canard configu-
ration (EAP), where aileron and elevator functions are combined; spoilers; and
flaperons which are similar in operation to elevons. The rate of roll is commonly
denoted by the annotation p.
The aircraft pitches by rotating around the Oy or lateral axis. The control
surfaces which can cause the aircraft to pitch are the elevators; the elevons;
the tailerons or the foreplanes. The rate of pitch is denoted by the annotation
q.
The aircraft yaws by rotating around the Oz or normal axis. The control sur-
face which causes the aircraft to yaw is the rudder. The rate of yaw is usually
denoted by the annotation r.

On the simplest aircraft the pilot operates a control column and a rudder bar.
Control in pitch is achieved by fore and aft movement of the control column;
pushing the column forwards lowers the nose while pulling it to the rear raises
the nose. Control in roll is exercised by moving the column from side-to-side;
movement to the right lowers the right wing and vice-versa. Control of the aircraft
in yaw is achieved by pushing the rudder bar with the feet; pushing the right pedal
causes the aircraft to yaw right and vice-versa, both column and rudder bar being
connected to the appropriate control surfaces by metal cables or tubes.
To give the aircraft additional control at certain stages during flight the
following control surfaces may also be used:
— flaps to increase the lift generated by the wings during take-off and landing but
also during manoeuvre;
— slats to increase lift during take-off and landing and during manoeuvre;
— airbrakes or speedbrakes to create additional drag when airspeed needs to be
rapidly reduced;
— wing sweep. Wings locked in the forward position increase the lift generated
at low speeds and improve the handling characteristics. Sweeping the wings aft
improves the high-speed characteristics including gust response.
Operation of all of these secondary control surfaces affects the control charac-
teristics of the aircraft and, where automatic flight control is being used, the
system will need to take account of them. Conversely, in a highly integrated flight
control system the surfaces may be automatically deployed as the system reacts to
the demands of the pilot. For example, the wing high lift devices such as flaps and
slats may be automatically deployed when the pilot of a fighter aircraft is engaged
in combat. In another system, control surfaces may be activated for load alleviation
during gusty conditions. To illustrate how some of these control surfaces may be
used refer to the example of the Tornado in Fig. 5.2 and 5.3 and the Experimental
Aircraft Programme (EAP) in Fig. 5.23 and 5.24.
Figure 5.4 is an example of a simple open loop control. As any pilot will know,
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.2 Tornado flight

control surfaces. The Wing Sweep
primary flight
controls are the
tailerons and rudder,
the others being
secondary controls.
Nevertheless the
requirements of —Tailerons
|
combat manoeuvre
may require the use
of the secondary
controls to achieve
the necessary agility.

Rudder

a correctly trimmed aircraft should maintain a given pitch attitude for a given set
of flight conditions — say straight and level flight. However if he alters one of
the conditions by perhaps increasing aircraft power to increase speed, then the
pitch attitude would in all likelihood increase and require a control correction to
prevent the aircraft from climbing. The wider the range of variables which the
aircraft encounters during flight then the greater the corrections required. In
practice, the open loop type of control system described is totally pias ba
for flight control as it would require continual intervention.
By providing continual corrections as flight conditions alter the pilot is in fact
part of a control system shown in Fig. 5.5 where he provides the feedback and
closes the loop. This system is known as a closed loop control system and we all
exercise such control as we walk, ride a bicycle or drive a car. Therefore when
a pilot flies an aircraft he is simultaneously closing a number of control loops by
controlling pitch, roll and yaw attitude, as well as aircraft altitude, speed and
heading. Both the commercial and military pilot are employed to do this; however
as aircraft have increased in performance and complexity the workload upon him
has increased to the extent that he now requires considerable help.
Because of these performance increases it has become necessary to use power
actuation to overcome the extremely high forces acting on the control surfaces.
As a result of this development, artificial feel systems have had to be introduced
to give the pilot simulated ‘feel’ forces proportional to demand. Otherwise he could
unwittingly overstress the aircraft during manoeuvre. Also, as aircraft speeds have
increased, the need for automatic trim systems based upon air data have become
necessary. Furthermore as aircraft shapes have become aerodynamically more
 Principles of flight control

flaps are deployed in the slow speed mode to match

Fig. 5.3. Tornado F2 with wings in forward position. The slats and
s. The taileron s can be seen at negative incidence to counteract the
the speed of the photographic Hercule
nose-down pitch Brisith Aerospace, Warton

Variables Variables

Aircraft :
Aircraft
Input aerodynamics Oulu
Fig. 5.4 Simple open loop controls
control
87
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.5 Closed loop control Variables Variables

using pilot
1 4
Aircraft Aircraft ; Output
Input controls aerodynamics iz

Variables Variables

Aircraft Aircraft
; t
ee controls aerodynamics Cues

Automatic Control Exercised by:

Sensors
Control of the Gain of the Forward Loop —
Typically gain scheduling using Air Data
Control of the Feedback Loop —
Inputs Typically using Inertial Sensors

Fig. 5.6 Closed loop control advanced to attain specific performance goals, stability has been eroded thus
using sensors requiring artificial auto-stabilization or stability augmentation. These more complex
shapes and accompanying increased performance have greatly increased the
number of variables which need to be used around the control loop and have
necessitated loop closure to provide the pilot with automatic control. Therefore
the elements of automatic flight control are typified by the diagram at Fig. 5.6. A
number of examples will be given of actual flight control systems. First it is
necessary to understand something of the types of sensors used by the modern
flight control system. The subject of control and stability will be briefly outlined.
The types of sensor used to modify aircraft control characteristics may be split
into two distinct types: air data sensors, and inertial sensors.
Air data sensors provide information relating to the atmosphere through which
the aircraft is flying. The characteristics of the atmosphere change appreciably with
altitude as does the performance of the aeroplane. Therefore, to minimise unde-
sirable features and to maintain stability, air data parameters need to be measured
and the necessary corrections or compensations in the control loop made. Air data
measurements relate in the main to pressure and airstream direction detection; in
some cases temperature too may be measured. Pressure is measured by using the
aircraft pitot system, commonly by the use of a probe which extends forward into
the airflow. These sensors are called pitot static probes and they measure the
dynamic or pitot pressure of the incident airstream and the local static pressure.
An example of an advanced form of probe with an in-built transducer unit is shown
in Fig. 5.7. This probe also has the capability of sensing airstream direction. The
embedded transducer unit removes the need for pitot-static tubing within the
airframe. The unit shown is manufactured by Rosemount and probes similar to this
are used on the B-1B and the X-29.
It can be seen that pitot pressure is sensed by the inner section which detects
‘
 Principles of flight control

Fig. 5.7 Pitot static multi- The PTU integrates four pneumatic
function air data outputs
probe’. pitot pressure P,
static pressure P,
Rosemount two angle-of-attack
Probe transducer unit
pressure Pal and Pa2
Angle-of-attack and angle-of-sideslip
are derived from differential pressures
between top and bottom parts
Pitot/static
probe Weight 363 Kg P, Port
Power 10 watts P.1 Port
MTBF: 12,700 hours

Manifold P, .
i \. P, Port a
P,,2 Port
11.43 cm ———..
PI
Airflow
+.
| Pa2=Fe1 ——
¢——16.51 cm——»>
transducer

the on-coming airflow. Slots in the outer tube permit the static pressure to be
sensed and in the example shown differential sensing across the probe gives a
measure of airstream detection. It is common to use pitot minus static (Pt — Ps) to
schedule aircraft control laws. Static pressure scheduling (Ps) may be used where
the performance of the control loop requires improvement as the aircraft altitude
increases to compensate for shortcomings in the aerodynamic performance of the
aircraft at high altitude.
Certain systems require measurement of the direction of the airstream relative
to the aircraft axes. The quantities measured are angle of attack (w) and angle of
sideslip (6). Refer to Fig. 5.8. The angle of attack is that between Ox, the

Fig. 5.8 Airstream detection —

angle of attack and
sideslip

Angle of attack a
oe
————————

ee I OCTON

Sideslip
 Flight Control Systems

longitudinal axis and the line OP. An aircraft will always fly at some positive angle
of attack relative to the airflow in order to generate lift. Angles as high as 25 to
30 degrees may be reached by a high performance fighter aircraft.
Usually the angles of sideslip will be small or zero. However, for highly agile
fighter aircraft manoeuvring concurrently at high rates of pitch and roll, sideslip
may be significant. The standard method of measuring incidence and sideslip is
by means of small vanes which follow the direction of the airflow and therefore
allow the airflow relative to aircraft axis to be determined.
The information derived from air data sensors for the purposes of flight control
gives the following parameters:
— indicated airspeed; — angle of attack;
— true airspeed; ~ angle of sideslip;
— air density; — Mach number;
— air pressure resulting in — rate of change of height (vertical speed
barometric height; indication).
— outside air temperature;

It is often the case that these parameters are calculated or derived in one or more
air data computers. However the increased levels of integration being experienced
in flight control systems, as well as a tendency towards ‘smart’ probes and sensors
(e.g. the Rosemount probe shown in Fig. 5.7), mean that-some tasks historically
associated with the air data computers may be undertaken elsewhere in the system.
Inertial sensors measure quantities relating to the motion or dynamics of the
vehicle. Inertial measurement is independent of the medium in which the aircraft
or vehicle is operating. Such sensors will therefore give information relating to
the vehicle motion irrespective of whether it is operating in water, air or a vacuum.
If the reference set chosen for the inertial sensors are the same axes as are chosen
for the aircraft in Fig. 5.1 then the following inertially derived information may
be useful in determining the dynamics of the aircraft and assisting in control. Refer
to Fig. 5.9.

Fig. 5.9 Inertial sensors axis iz

z — Velocity
set
z — Acceleration

y — Velocity
y — Acceleration

x — Velocity
x — Acceleration

The roll rate p, pitch rate q, and yaw rate r may be measured using roll rate
gyros. Similarly roll, pitch and yaw attitude may be determined by attitude sensing
gyros. Accelerometers suitably mounted will sense accelerations in the Ox axis
(longitudinal acceleration or x), Oy axis (lateral acceleration or y), and Oz axis
(vertical acceleration or Z). Integrating these accelerations will yield the longitu-
dinal, lateral and vertical velocities (x, y and z). Therefore by sensing
7
 Essential elements of control

aircraft attitude and rotation rates with gyros and acceleration using accelerome-
ters, integrating acceleration to derive velocities, a range of dynamic sensor infor-
mation may be made available to control the aircraft.
Attitude information is commonly used in autopilot modes to control pitch, roll
and yaw attitude (heading). Of these modes heading hold or heading acquire
modes are perhaps the most common though some fighter aircraft have pitch and
roll attitude hold modes; the Tornado autopilot uses such modes. Body rate and
acceleration information is usually used for auto-stabilization and more sophisti-
cated control loops of the type most often found on board the latest generation
of fighter aircraft.
In the examples which follow later in this chapter several flight control system
architectures will be described and the use of both air data and inertial sensors
will be identified.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF CONTROL

The typical closed loop control system described briefly in Fig. 5.6 has a number
of yardsticks by which performance is specified and measured. The most common
criteria specified relate to accuracy, transient performance and stability.
Accuracy may typically be defined by a requirement which specifies that a
certain control parameter must be maintained within specified limits. For example,
a heading hold mode of an autopilot may be specified as requiring +0.5 degree
accuracy, or an altitude hold mode may demand an accuracy of +200 feet. There-
fore the autopilot will be expected to control the heading to within 0.5 degrees
and the altitude to within 200 feet of the respective datums set by the pilot. The
nature of the problem posed for the designer in respect of transient performance
may be illustrated by a simple example depicted in Fig. 5.10. This diagram shows
the transient response to a step input of three notional systems: A, B and C. System
A rises rapidly to satisfy the input, however it overshoots and undershoots the
datum several times before settling within prescribed limits. This eventually occurs
at point A on the diagram. System B is slower to respond than system A. It settles
within the limits at point B. System C is still slower to respond and it settles within
limits at point C. System B clearly has the best transient response of the three
systems; it should also be noted that system C although slowest to respond of all,
actually settles within limits before the faster rising but over-oscillatory system A.

Fig. 5.10 Comparison of Point A — Curve A within Limits

transient Response Point B — Curve B within Limits
Point C — Curve C within Limits Point A
performance
Limits

Point B
 Flight Control Systems

This simple example is indicative of the problems that the control systems engineer
has to face. Furthermore, the response indicated by system B may be perfectly
acceptable at one point in the flight envelope; at other points where conditions
differ markedly this may not be the case and variations in the control laws will be
required for acceptable performance to be attained.

Fig. 5.11 Comparison of Response

stable and unstable
systems

New datum

Stable (Curve 1)
——— Neutrally stable (Curve 2)
— -—-— Unstable (Curve 3)

The differences between stable and unstable systems may also be simply shown.
Fig. 5.11 shows three different responses to a control input or system perturbation
and how each attains the new system datum. Curve 1 illustrates a response of the
type shown by system A in the earlier example. The response is oscillatory but is
damped and will eventually settle at the desired datum. Such a system is said to
be stable. Curve 2 is more oscillatory than Curve 1, however the amplitude of the
oscillation remains constant. This response is neutrally stable. Curve 3 is highly
oscillatory, furthermore the amplitude of the oscillation increases with each swing
of the system. Left to its own devices, this oscillation will diverge to infinity or
some practical limit. Curve 3 represents an unstable system and unless additional
control methods were employed could lead to spectacular results if used in a flight
control system.
The relationship between where the lift and weight forces act on an aircraft
gives an indication of whether it is stable or unstable in pitch and to what extent.
Fig. 5.12 is a simple diagram showing the relationship of lift and weight forces.
The aircraft weight is a downwards force acting through the aircraft centre of
gravity. The aircraft lift force is an upwards force acting through a point called
the aerodynamic centre of pressure. In the example shown a downwards trim force
is required of the tailplane to keep the aircraft in trim, that is, preventing it from
pitching nose down. This aircraft configuration is stable and represents the over-
whelming majority of aircraft flying today. The prime disadvantage is that in order
to manoeuvre in a turn, i.e. pitch-up, the taileron down force must increase and
this downwards force acts against the total lift force. Therefore although the
92 ‘
 Civil systems
Fig. 5.12 Relationship of lift
and weight forces — Lift
stable configuration (Manoeuvre)

Lift
(Cruise)

Weight

aaySe
Fig. 5.13 Relationship of lift
and weight forces — Lift :
unstable (Manoeuvre) |
configuration i]

Lift
Trim force (Cruise)
(Manoeuvre)

Trim force
(Cruise)

Weight

configuration is stable it does not offer optimum manoeuvrability.

The more unorthodox canard configuration adopted by four recent fighters is
shown in Fig. 5.13. In this case the centre of pressure is located forward of the
centre of gravity. The foreplanes are required to supply a downwards trim force
to prevent the aircraft from pitching nose up. In this case when the aircraft is
required to manoeuvre by pitching up the foreplane downwards trim force is
reversed, now becoming an upwards force acting in the same direction as the lift
force. This is an unstable configuration and cannot fly safely without computer
control. It has the advantage of improved manoeuvrability and this may be at a
premium for a fighter aircraft.
Many of the control characteristics described have been known and understood
since the early days of flying. However the means by which the necessary control
techniques could be implemented were not generally available until the advent of
modern reliable micro-electronics. Electronic components and techniques which
satisfy the integrity requirements of the necessary control systems are now avail-
able.

CIVIL SYSTEMS

Of the large number of civil flight control systems in evidence today, two will be
briefly described, the British Aerospace 146, Fig. 5.14 and the Airbus Industries
A320, Fig. 5.15.
The autopilot for the BAe 146 is produced by Smiths Industries and is known
as the SEP 10 (Smiths Electric Pilot 10) and is a logical development of the SEP
1, itself derived from the RAE Mark IX. The system schematic is shown in
simplified form in Fig. 5.16. The main system components are:
93
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.14 British Aerospace Pilot controls: Computers:

BAe 146 British — autopilot controller — yaw computer
Aerospace, Hatfield — mode selector — autopilot computer
— altitude controller — monitor computer (for Category 2
operation only)
Sensors:
Actuators:
— lateral accelerometer
— yaw, roll and pitch servomotors
— yaw rate sensor
— pitch trim servomotor
— altitude sensor
— indicated airspeed sensor
— normal accelerometer

The basic modes provided by the autopilot include:

pitch attitude hold with datum adjust —-glide slope capture and tracking
— roll attitude hold with datum adjust — directed go-around
— altitude hold — heading preselect
— altitude preset — VOR/ILS localiser any angle
— airspeed hold capture and tracking
— mach hold — back beam coupling.
— vertical speed hold

Perhaps the best way of outlining what these modes offer the pilot is to describe
a typical flight leg when a number of these features will be used.
Following take-off the pilot will engage attitude hold while accelerating towards
the desired climbing speed. At this point he may also have a VOR beacon selected
94 ‘
 Civil systems

Fig. 5.15 Airbus A320

Airbus Industrie Yaw Roll Pitch Pitch
servomotor Servo oe trim
Yaw motor mservo servo
otor .
computer Ons (7 motor ' Flight
tea Audio director
ee Warming’ outputs
Autopilot
Aileron
computer
position
(including em
transmitter
flight a
director) LOE,
A
accelerometer y oe de A) | y Monitor
Yaw rate sensor F Soa <<" eomputer
Altitude (a4
r< sensor |.AS. ZF e)
sensor Normal
; accelerometer Vertical
Autopilot reference No. 1
controller RIN bes HSI No. 1 Vertical
| PERE ON Compass system Reference No. 2
aa ee Radio No. 1 HSI No. 2
ee f with Radio No. 2
Fig. 5.16 BAe 146 SEP eth aliensatte
autopilot — (altitude Type 3B
schematic acquire) altimeter — Basic
diagram.: Smiths of ----- Options
Industries [Link] %
95
Flight Control Systems

to aid navigation during the departures procedure phase. Alternatively, he could

be using the back beam mode coupled to the ILS localiser. During the climb out
to cruising altitude, the aircraft may be required to hold at a specific altitude to
avoid conflict with other air traffic. At this stage the pilot could select altitude hold
mode together with VOR coupled mode or heading hold to provide guidance in
azimuth. Given clearance to continue the climb to cruise altitude would involve
re-selection of the airspeed hold mode together with the selection of further VOR
beacons as necessary. Upon attaining the assigned cruise altitude the altitude hold
mode would be engaged together with airspeed or mach hold and the necessary
navigation mode selections. At the conclusion of the cruise phase of the flight the
descent phase would commence, probably using the airspeed hold mode to control
airspeed during the descent. At various stages during the descent the pilot may
be requested by Air Traffic Control to hold altitude when the altitude hold mode
would be re-engaged. During busy traffic periods he may be instructed to enter
a ‘stack’ at various altitudes. During this holding pattern he may be called upon
to fly a race-track pattern relative to a VOR beacon. This could be accomplished
by using the altitude hold mode in conjunction with the VOR coupled mode. When
instructed by Air Traffic Control the captain would exit the holding pattern and
commence his approach to the airfield. Initially this could involve the selection of
altitude hold together with the ILS localiser capture, later the ILS glideslope
capture could also be selected to initiate a full ILS coupled-approach. At this stage
speed would also be controlled by the autopilot. Depending upon the weather and
aircraft fit this could be continued to a full Category 2 approach and landing.
This example gives a simple indication of how the pilot may use the various
autopilot modes to assist him throughout typical phases of the flight. It can be
appreciated that the availability of these autopilot features is of great benefit as the
crew execute all the procedures and checklists associated with flying the complex
aircraft through the busy airspace which surrounds airfields in the 1980s.
One of the most progressive flight control systems to be built for a civil airliner
is the one developed for the Airbus Industrie A320. This system is the first fully
fly-by-wire control system designed for an airliner; the requirements for correct
performance and in-built handling protection features include design for better
than 1 x 10~° failures per hour. The aircraft is also novel in that it is the
first airliner to be designed with sidestick controllers in lieu of the conventional
control column.
The simplified block schematic of the A320 flight control system is shown in
Fig. 5.17. The aircraft has three independent hydraulic systems called blue (B),
green (G) and yellow (Y); the segregation of these hydraulic systems by various
flight control actuators is shown. The flight control system comprises a total of
seven computers of three different types. Two elevator aileron computers (ELACs)
supply inputs to the four elevator and aileron sections. Three spoiler elevator
computers (SECs) supply the four elevator and ten spoiler sections. Two flight
augmentation computers (FACs) effectively provide yaw damper and yaw guidance
demands for the three rudder sections. During normal operation the control
surfaces are controlled by the appropriate numbered computer as shown. From this
diagram the combination of failures of hydraulic systems and computers may be
deduced. The trimmable horizontal surface actuator (THS actuator) is a triplex
trim motor. The moding of the spoiler and aileron sections is as follows:
— Ground spoilers (lift dump) are exercised by all ten spoiler sections.
- The speed brake function is exercised by the three inboard spoiler sections on
each wing.
 UK military developments
Fig. 5.17 Airbus A320 flight 2 Elevator Aileron 3 Spoiler Elevator 2 Flight Augmentation
control system Computers Computers Computer
Interavia
Bence SEC 1 2 FAC 1 2]

fe NDS bans r—— GND-SPL———

eA OO -Bat r—SPD-BRK—A -——LAF——
title

ELAGH 2 Norm CTL il @ lsuNe

SEC 2 1 Cues NO Gi laces 1 1 2 SEC
SEC Pe Giles SEC
THS Actuator

Actuator

— Roll control is exercised by all four aileron sections and by the outer four
spoiler sections on the inside or lower wing.
— Load allevation is achieved by using all four aileron sections and the two
outboard spoiler sections on each wing.

In the unlikely event of a total loss of electrical power and therefore electronic
control, the input shown M represents a mechanical link with control over the
variable incidence tailplane and the rudder. Flight tests on a range of Airbus
models have demonstrated that it is possible to land the aircraft using just these
controls. However this mechanical reversion mode is intended as a back-up control
while the crew execute emergency procedures to restore the primary electronic
flight control system. The manufacturers involved in the development of the three
types of flight control computer are SFENA and Thomson-CSF. Both were
constrained to use different processors and programming languages; the complete
segregation of design teams was also decreed. The system has therefore been
designed in accordance with the dissimilar processor/dissimilar software principle
to avoid subtle though possibly unsafe generic or single mode system failures. (Fig.
5.18 and Ref.1)
The concept of sidestick control was demonstrated by fitting sidesticks to a
modified A300 which was used to prove the concept in flight to some twenty
airlines, six certification authorities and the aviation press. Initial pilot reaction
to the implementation of the sidestick controllers was very favourable and there
is an acceptance that it is the logical way to fly a digital flight control system. For
an account of flying the A 300 sidestick demonstrator aircraft refer to the ‘Flight
International’ article,” a later one? describes the flight characteristics of the A320.

UK MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS

The improved performance of military aircraft following the Second World War,
particularly those powered by jet propulsion, led to the need for dutch roll
97
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.18 The world’s first

‘intelligent’ avionic
system developed by
GEC Avionics to
control the
powerful slats and
flaps of the A300
series Airbus. It
incorporates two
different types of
microprocessor to
ensure that it will
‘fail-safe’. The slats
and flaps control
system computer is
shown with, on the
left, the Intel 8085
and right, the
Fairchild 6800
microprocessors.
Other 8-bit
microprocessors can
be used, Motorola
in place of
Fairchild and AMD
in place of the
Intel GEC Avionics

damping. Dutch roll is a periodic oscillation in pitch and yaw in which the aircraft
axes trace an elliptical path with the magnitude of the yaw oscillation around two
or three times that in pitch. The solution to the problem was to incorporate yaw
damping; this was the forerunner of the fly-by-wire flight control systems used by
many of today’s high performance fighter aircraft.
The introduction of high pressure hydraulic systems led to the development of
electrically signalled hydraulic actuators to satisfy the requirements of high
performance aircraft. As fly-by-wire flight control systems have evolved these
actuators have developed into complex units with multiple channel redundancy
matching that of the flight control computation.
The availability of cheap, high speed, high reliability micro-electronics has
played a significant role. The replication of different lanes or channels of analogue
-
 ~

S=

=2
—_
S

3
&
3
==
==
=

=
==
=S

Fig 5: 19 Panavia Tornado

IDS P12 with
wings in fully swept
position Arthur
Gibson
 Flight Control Systems

or digital computing has become more reliable and cost-effective, thereby allowing
triplex and quadruplex computing implementations of flight control laws to become
reality. The high speed logic capabilities of medern micro-electronics also permit
monitoring, cross-monitoring and moding logic to be incorporated without signif-
icant hardware overheads or penalties.
The main UK military developments in the fly-by-wire flight control systems area
have encompasssd the last 13 years. Developments have progressed from the fly-
by-wire (FBW) system on the Tornado (Fig. 5.19) in the early 1970s, through the
Jaguar FBW demonstrator to the EAP. The Tornado first flew in 1974, the Jaguar
FBW (Fig. 5.21) in 1982 and the EAP (Figs 5.23, 5.24) in 1986. In a little over
a decade the fly-by-wire system has advanced from a first-generation triplex
analogue computing system with a mechanical reversion to a fully digital quad-
ruplex system with total authority. The main capabilities and features of these
systems are outlined below.
The Tornado Control and Stability Augmentation System (CSAS) fly-by-wire
system was the first of its type to be utilised on an operational combat aircraft in
Europe. The Tornado is not an inherently unstable aircraft as has been described
earlier, where the aircraft would be totally uncontrollable without the provision
of electronic control. However, due to the variable sweep configuration there
would be enormous variations in aerodynamic characteristics, and therefore hand-
ling qualities throughout the flight envelope, were electronic assistance not offered
to the pilot. The aircraft could be flown without augmentation, but at the penalty
of an unacceptable workload on the pilot of an operational aircraft. It was there-
fore the first British military aircraft to employ a fly-by-wire system to improve
stability, provide the pilot with sensibly predictable control forces (constant stick
force per ‘G’) and enhance the weapon-aiming capabilities for the greater part of
the flight envelope. To achieve these objectives the system has the following
features:
— Triplex autostabilisation in roll, pitch and yaw utilising feedback signals from
triplex roll, pitch and yaw rate gyro packages.
— Gain scheduling in the forward computing paths to normalize the aircraft hand-
ling qualities. This gain scheduling will typically neutralise or minimise the effect
of changes in dynamic pressure (Pt — Ps), wing sweep and trim changes (for
example, due to airbrake deployment), so that the pilot may effectively ignore
them during his handling of the aircraft.

A simplified block diagram of the Tornado CSAS is depicted in Fig. 5.20. The
pilot’s inputs to the system are signalled via triplex potentiometers connected to
the control column (roll and pitch) and rudder pedals (yaw). The pilot may also
feed trim inputs into the system. Triplex inputs to the computers are: air data —
dynamic pressure; inertial data — roll, pitch and yaw rate; and aircraft configuration
data — wing sweep and airbrake position. Pitch computations are carried out in
the triplex pitch computers which compute pitch rate demands using analogue
computing techniques. The triplex lateral computers calculate roll and yaw rate
demands in a similar fashion and there are cross-coupling links between both sets
of computers. Quadruplex demands in roll and pitch are signalled; the taileron
actuators acting differentially for roll demands and in unison for pitch demands.
A lesser level of redundancy is employed when demands are signalled to the rudder
and spoiler sections. Extensive cross-monitoring and voter-monitoring is employed
at various computational stages to disable or vote out signals outside the normal

100
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UK military developme
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 Flight Control Systems

range of operation. A number of reversionary modes may be used in the event of

system failures. The primary modes of operation of the CSAS are as follows:
— Full CSAS operation.
— Reversion to direct electrical link in pitch and roll following second lane failure
in the autostabilization loop. In the event of such failures in the yaw channel
the rudder is fixed in the neutral position.
— In the event of a second lane failure in the forward computing (or gain sched-
uling) path the system may be flown with a direct mechanical link in pitch and
roll.
In addition to his primary inputs into the system in pitch and roll (stick) and
yaw (rudder), the pilot has a CSAS control panel to assist in controlling and
monitoring the system. The control panel allows to initiate system built-in test
(BIT) to check for correct operation prior to flight. The control panel also serves
to indicate to the pilot first or second lane failures in each axis. In certain circum-
stances it also offers the facility of selecting failure states in order to be able to
demonstrate these for training purposes. For the Air Defence Variant (ADV) or
Tornado F2 and F3, additional facilities are available by the addition of an Auto-
matic Configuration Control Processer (ACCP). This will automatically control the
wing sweep, flap and slat settings at various stages in flight and offers the pilot
the automatic selection of optimum configuration of high lift devices whilst engaged
in close air-to-air combat.
In 1977 British Aerospace was awarded a contract to develop and demonstrate
the benefits of Active Control Technology (ACT). The prime aims of the
programme were to design, develop and demonstrate the safe and practical use of
a primary flight control system for a modern combat aircraft. Among the prime
assumptions was that the production models have the airworthiness capability to prove
safe software in flight. The additional control procedures to design, test and
qualify the high integrity system were also required. Therefore the decision was
taken to dispense with a mechanical reversion and rely upon a quadruplex digital
system with common high integrity software, and it was designed from the outset
without the inclusion of either mechanical or direct electrical link reversions which
were features of the Tornado CSAS. The Jaguar was chosen as the ACT
demonstrator and modified appropriately (Fig. 5.21).
In view of these ambitious aims certain precautions were taken to increase the
redundancy of the system to sextuplex, or more correctly, duo-triplex by the means
of further consolidation within the system. Quadruplex inputs to the four flight
control computers were extended to duo-triplex by the use of supplementary
Actuator Drive and Monitor Computers (ADMCs) as shown in Fig. 5.22. There-
fore each Power Flying Control Unit (PFCU) contained six servovalves which
accepted the duo-triplex demands (FCC1 + FCC2 + ADMC1) and (FCC3 +
FCC4 + ADMC2). Mechanical consolidation of these duo-triplex demands
within the PFCUs effectively assured that any two-lane failures could be
absorbed. Therefore the term ‘failure absorption’ was coined to describe this
ingenious implementation. The precise engineering in this area was undertaken
by Dowty Boulton Paul*’. Control in roll, pitch and yaw depends upon the
comparison of pilot inputs with aircraft body rates in a similar fashion to the
Tornado CSAS. The forward gain of the control loop is scheduled in accordance
with certain variables; airspeed, altitude, incidence and undercarriage position.
The aims of the control laws were to minimise the variation in stick force per G
as was the case for the Tornado. The aircraft was made aerodynamically unstable
102
‘
 UK military developments

Fig. 5.21 ADV Tornado in in the later phases by the fitting of large strakes on each side of the Jaguar intakes.
formation with These had the effect of moving the aerodynamic centre of lift much further forward
ACT Jaguar than on the conventional Jaguar: it will be recalled that movement of the centre
demonstrator. Note
position of Tornado of lift forward of the centre of gravity makes an aircraft unstable. After the strakes
(a very stable had been fitted the stability of the aircraft could still be varied by fitting large
aircraft) control quantities of ballast in the rear of the fuselage to vary the centre of gravity. The
surfaces. Maximum combination of those and other modifications allowed the centre of gravity to be
negative lift on the
moved back to —10% ¢€ during the flight test programme. (€ is the mean aero-
tailerons while the
Jaguar, a totally dynamic chord. This is an aerodynamically defined parameter and depends upon
unstable aircraft, the wing planform. For most conventional flighter wing planforms the mean aero-
shows slight dynamic chord approximates in value to the geometric mean chord.) 2
positive lift Arthur Flight testing of the FBW Jaguar was split into five distinct phases, commencing
Gibson
in October 1981 and culminating just over three years later.‘ The programme
provided significant information upon the performance of an unstable aircraft. It
also yielded valuable experience in the management and proving of a programme
utilizing high-integrity software driven flight control laws.
In early 1981, work at British Aerospace Warton was focusing upon a British
Industry funded project called P 110. In 1982 this British initiative came to an end
but was replaced by collaborative work undertaken by the Tornado partners —
British Aerospace, Aeritalia and Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB). This
project was known as the Agile Combat Aircraft (ACA) and was undertaken on
the basis of a 40/40/20 percent workshare between the UK, German and Italian
airframe companies respectively. A Joint Flight Control System development team
103
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 UK military developments

was established at the MBB plant in Miinich which continued flight control system
design based upon the experience gained by British Aerospace with the FBW
Jaguar and the MBB CCV F-104. Unfortunately, withdrawal of support by the
German Ministry resulted in the ACA being dropped in 1983. Instead, a joint
UK MoD and British industry development, partly assisted by some German and
Italian firms, continued with a single aircraft demonstrator programme: the Exper-
imental Aircraft Programme or EAP. Much of the flight control design undertaken
by the ACA Joint Team in Munich was incorporated into the EAP flight control
system.’

The aerodynamic configuration of the EAP (Figs 5.23, 5.24) differs fundamen-
tally from the more conventional configuration already described for the Tornado
and Jaguar. The aircraft is of canard configuration with a cranked delta mainplane
and two foreplanes or canards located ahead of the mainplanes. Control of the
aircraft is exercised by:

foreplanes for pitch and roll control;

Fig. 5.23 EAP trailing edge flaperons for pitch control and trim;
: demonstrator British — rudder for directional control;
Aerospace, Warton leading edge flaps, primarily to optimise control in pitch.

105
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.24 EAP demonstrator The ability to control the leading edge flaps and flaperons effectively allows the
showing canard wing contour to be altered for various flight conditions, either improving the main-
foreplanes, leading
plane lift characteristics or minimising adverse effects such as pitch-up. Therefore
edge flaps and
flaperons British in a simplistic way there are some similarities between these features and the
Aerospace, Warton Mission Adaptive Wing (MAW) concept being tested in the US and described
later in this chapter.
In addition to these primary flight control surfaces, control is also exercised over
the left and right intake ramps and the nosewheel steering system. The prime
avionic contractor is GEC Avionics who were also the avionics supplier for the
FBW Jaguar.
A simplified schematic of the EAP flight control system is shown in Fig. 5.25.
It will be noted from this diagram that there are no discrete rate gyro or acceler-
ometer packages. Instead, aircraft motion is sensed by means of four Aircraft
Motion Sensing Units (AMSUs) which are effectively strap-down inertial units
106
‘
 UK military developments

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107
 Flight Control Systems

which are used to provide three axis body rates and accelerations as well as three
axis attitude and inertial information.
Air data from the pitot/static system is provided by two dual channel air data
computers. Four Airstream Direction Detectors (ADDs) feed incidence and
sideslip information into each of the four Flight Control Computers (FCCs). The
pilot’s inputs to the system are independently sensed by pitch, roll and yaw sensors
and fed in quadruplex to the four FCCs. Computed demands from the FCCs are
fed to four actuator drive units which drive the left and right flaperon sections
and the rudder; signalling is quadruplex. The foreplane actuators are driven
directly in quadruplex from the FCCs. The links between AMSUs, ADCs, FCCs
and ADUs is by means of digital transmission. All computing is digital with the
control laws being executed by high integrity software. The system is purely elec-
trically signalled, there being no mechanical reversion. The aircraft operates in
a totally unstable configuration with a manoeuvre margin of around —123% ¢.
The EAP first flew as a high technology demonstrator for key systems in the
European Fighter Aircraft project (Fig. 5.26) on 8 August 1986 and successfully
Fig. 5.26 European Fighter
Aircraft project — concluded its initial flight clearance programme before the SBAC Show at Farn-
Artist’s impression borough in September 1986. Further flight testing with some modifications for high
Arthur Gibson speed and high angle of attack test sorties were made before the Paris Show in

108
 Advanced developments

the following year. Since that date the programme has continued with few snags
and is providing considerable data for the EFA which is a collaborative project
involving British Aerospace, MBB in Germany, Aeritalia in Italy and CASA in
Spain (see also Chapter Six).

ADVANCED DEVELOPMENTS

The preceding section described the evolution of UK and European fighter fly-
by-wire systems over the past one and a half decades. It is interesting to review
some of the corresponding developments by the American aerospace industry in
recent years. The F-15, F-16 and F-18 all utilize flight control systems based
upon multiple channel fly-by-wire systems. The F-15A/C versions utilise a three
axis stability augmentation system supplied by General Electric. The more recent
F-15E Dual Role Fighter variant has a digital flight control system supplied by
Lear Siegler Inc. The F-16A initially employed a quadruplex analogue system,
however later F-16Cs will have a quadruplex digital system developed by Bendix.
The F/A-18 is fitted with a quadruplex digital flight control system supplied by
General Electric.
More recently a number of programmes have been initiated by US Governmental
Agencies to examine a range of advanced techniques by means of technology
demonstrator programmes. These programmes include:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/Grumman X-29

(Fig. 5.27).
Advanced Fighter Technology Integration (AFTI) F-111 Mission Adaptive
Wing (MAW) (Fig. 5.28).
F-15 STOL Manoeuvre Technology Demonstrator (Fig. 5.29).
DARPA/ROCKWELL/MBB X-31 (Fig. 5.30)
The forward swept wing of the Grumman X-29 is surely one of the most startling
aircraft of recent times, though aerodynamically it is not novel in concept: aero-
dynamicists were always aware of this possibility. See Fig. 5.27. The benefits

Fig. 5.27 Grumman X-29

configuration

109
 Flight Control Systems

Fig. 5.28 F-111 mission

adaptive wing — Variable camber
—1___
primary modes
5i ats Dig

A _—_——_—— Manoeuvre

Lift

oe ae are Cruise

Penetration

Range of trailing edge camber

Fig.5.29 F-15 STOL

manoeuvre
technology
demonstrator
configuration

110
 Advanced developments
Fig. 5.30 DARPA/Rockwell/
MBB X-31
configuration

of such a forward swept wing are difficult to quantify without a detailed aero-
dynamic dissertation. For the purposes of outlining the aims of the X-29 program
the advantages may be assumed to be:
— greater lift slope, that is a better life : drag ratio;
— lower induced drag;
improved low-speed handling; in other words, less pronounced pitch-up when
operating near the stall;
improved wing area, or smaller structural span for a given wing loading with
consequent saving in aircraft weight.

The technical capabilities needed to successfully operate a forward swept wing

are due in part to advanced structural and composite techniques to make the wing
sufficiently ‘stiff; the other prime contributor is advanced micro-electronics. Some
of the structural and construction features of the X-29 augment the fundamental
aerodynamic advantages. The first is the use of a supercritical wing which delays
shock-wave formations at high Mach numbers. The second is the use of carbon
composite material in the wings which increases stiffness and reduces wing aero-
elastic effects. This therefore reduces structural weight and to a lesser degree,
reduces drag. It has been estimated that for a given mission drag may be reduced
by between 10 and 20 per cent.
Aircraft control is effected by the forward canards, flaperons on the rear of the
swept wing, strake flaps adjacent to the rear fuselage section and the rudder. The
aircraft is probably one of the most unstable ever flown with a manoeuvre margin
of —35% mean aerodynamic chord (compared with —10% for the FBW Jaguar
111
 Flight Control Systems

and —124% for EAP). The flight control system is based upon a Honeywell system
developed for the SR-71 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. Triplex redundant digital
flight control computers are used with an integral analogue system to satisfy integ-
rity requirements.
The DARPA/US Air Force funded programme began in 1981 and the first
flight took place on 14 December 1984. Two experimental aircraft are being used
in the programme to expand the flight envelope to establish the true benefits of
this unique configuration.
The possibility of altering wing camber was mentioned during the description
of the EAP system. An ambitious programme of development and demonstration
involving NASA Dryden and the US Air Force has been under way since 1979
to apply such a technique in a more advanced form to a heavily modified F-111.
This has been termed mission adaptive wing .and the aims are to combine a
smoothly variable camber wing with a system which already employs automatic flight
control. (The F-111 employs a triplex analogue computing system to augment the
primary mechanical flight control linkage). The main phases of operation being
examined are:
— Manoeuvre Camber Control: This mode is intended to set the wing camber to
achieve maximum lift :drag ratio according to a pre-programmed schedule of
mach number, altitude and ‘G’ loading.
— Cruise Camber Control: In this mode the system will rata the flaps in small
increments during flight to optimize speed for a given power setting.
— Manoeuvre Load Setting: The movement of the outboard trailing edge sections
are modified to minimize the wing root bending moment to pre-set limits.
— Manoeuvre Enhancement/Gust Control: This feature uses vertical (normal)
acceleration to excursions in the vertical plane.

For a ready comparison of these modes refer to Fig. 5.28.

The X-29 concentrates development upon a new, and to some extent, limited
airframe. The F-111 AFTI/MAW development relates specifically to lift and load
control on a specific airframe — a very heavily modified F-111. The F-15 STOL
Manoeuvre Technology Demonstrator is in contrast in the sense that it demon-
strates technology in an active front line US Air Force aircraft, albeit with
significant modification. It is more relevant to operational Air Force requirements
in that, as well as exploring advanced control techniques the vehicle is réquired
to demonstrate the ability to land and take-off in 1500 feet in low visibility
conditions. This requirement is essential to operating off cratered runways in poor
weather conditions and could well represent a realistic wartime scenario. It is also
possible that some of the technologies demonstrated could be embodied in future
versions of the F-15 and variants of the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF). The
ATF is presently under way in a Demonstration-Validation (Dem/Val) phase
between competing teams led by Lockheed with the YF-22A and Northrop with
the YF-23A.
The F-15 SMTD program involves significant modification to a standard F-15B
two seat aircraft. The aircraft planform is modified as shown in Fig. 5.29. In
relation to the flight control system these modifications are:
— the addition of canard control surfaces adjacent to the intakes;
— the inclusion of 2-dimensional (2D) thrust vectoring and reversing nozzles to
add an additional means of manoeuvring in pitch by means of thrust vectoring.
_— As well as these flight control system alterations, the aircraft will demonstrate
112 ‘
 Advanced developments

lightweight structural materials on the upper wing surfaces and be fitted with an
electro-optic sensor to prove the concept in low visibilities.
The demonstration of the 2D thrust vectoring/thrust reversing nozzle is an
important feature. These nozzles were developed by Pratt and Whitney to be used
in conjunction with the F-100 engines. The flight control system has been evolved
from the General Electric fly-by-wire system used for the F/A-18. Each of the
quadruplex processors utilizes a MIL-STD-1750A instruction set with software
written in the US standard J-73 (JOVIAL) software language. Certain elements of
the programme — probably the newer and most innovative modules — are
programmed in ADA.
The F-15 SMTD is certainly one of the most exciting flight control develop-
ments presently under way in the US. This is particularly so because of the choice
of demonstrator vehicle and the relevance of the programme aims to future fighter
aircraft requirements.
The DARPA/ROCKWELL/MBB X-31 programme was initiated in 1987 by
DARPA in conjunction with Rockwell and MBB. The prime aim of the two
aircraft demonstrator programme is to provide a technology feasibility fly-off
whereby unique high manoeuvre techniques may be examined. The programme is
jointly funded by the US and Germany, with formal go-ahead given in February
1987. Test flying is intended to commence in 1989. The aircraft layout is shown
in Fig. 5.30. There is a great deal of emphasis placed upon thrust vectoring in this
program, as for the F-15 SMTD. In this case the thrust vectoring is in the yaw
plane and is implemented by means of vanes which extend into the engine jet
efflux. Movement of the vane from side-to-side causes the jet efflux to be deflected
in the yaw plane hence causing the aircraft to yaw. This feature is expected to be
of benefit at low speeds and very high angles of attack (circa 80 degrees) in
allowing the pilot to out-manoeuvre an opponent in close-in dogfight situations.
The principle of using vanes to vector aircraft thrust in this way is presently being
proved on a modified F-14A under a programme funded by the US Navy. Initial
test results have indicated that the technique is yielding better performance than
was predicted.
The use of light transmission by means of fibre-optic techniques has long
offered attractions to the flight control system designer. The particular advantages
of fibre-optic signalling include higher data rates and a considerable reduction
in the effects of electro-magnetic interference or lightning strikes upon the
sensitive signalling lanes between computers and actuators. These effects are
potentially more bothersome in modern aircraft where large sections of structure
may comprise composite rather than metallic material. The use of these composite
materials in the structure denies the avionic systems a degree of natural screening
normally given by conventional metallic materials.
Despite all of the foregoing descriptions of high technology and high integrity
systems being applied to current front line fighters and technology demonstrators,
it may come as something of a surprise to realise that the only fly-by-light system
presently in service is on an airship. Airships pose particular problems in that they
possess non-rigid structures which continually flex during flight. Therefore a
traditional mechanical cable and pulley signalling system is unsuitable. Similarly,
the presence of long screened signalling wires within a largely non-metallic struc-
ture has the disadvantage of potentially acting as a lightning conductor, positively
encouraging lightning strikes.
Consequently, a fly-by-light system was adopted for the Airship Industries
Skyship 600. This airship uses a duplex system developed by GEC Avionics and
113
 Flight Control Systems

was first demonstrated in 1982. The Skyship 600 utilises a duplex system since
the pitch response of an airship is much less dramatic than that of a conventional
aircraft — hence a duplex system offers sufficiently high integrity. Nevertheless,
the fly-by-light techniques must be considered to be a viable option for future
military and civil aircraft when some of the existing component problems have been
overcome.

REFERENCES

i: Lambert, M. ‘A 320 Dual Sidestick System Takes Off, Interavia 12/1986.

2. Hopkins, H. ‘Flight flies fly-by-wire Airbus’, Flight International 13 September
1986.
Ww. Hopkins, H. ‘Flight tests the A320 Airbus’ Flight International 12 December 1987.

. Hilton, R. G., Steed, D. J. ‘Fly-By-Wire Actuation for Combat Aircraft’, Aerospace,

March 1984.
. Hilton, R. G., Steed, D.J. ‘Fly-By-Wire Actuation for Combat Aircraft’, Aircraft
Engineering, February 1985.
. Yeo, G. R. ‘Fly-By-Wire Jaguar’ Aerospace, March 1984.
. Kaul, H.-J., Sella, F., Walker, M. J. “The Flight Control System for the Exper-
imental Aircraft Programme (EAP) Demonstrator Aircraft’, 65th Flight Mechanics
Panel Symposium on ‘Active Control Systems’, Toronto, 15-18 October 1984.

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CHAPTER 6 AIRCRAFT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
IAN MOIR BSC, CEng, MIEE, MRAeS

Senior Multiplexing Systems Engineer, Smiths Industries. Mr Moir undertook his

graduate training as an Engineering Officer in the Royal Air Force being awarded
a BSc (Eng) 2nd Class Honours Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Service
in the Far East was followed by responsibility, at RAF Brize Norton, for first
line servicing of VC 10 and Belfast aircraft.
In 1970, in the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he took a post-graduate Course at
RAF College, Cranwell, having already been awarded an Air Training Corps
Flying Scholarship and the de Havilland Flying Trophy for the best pilot in
RAF Officer Cadet Entry (1965).
In 1972 he joined the RAF Project Team with responsibility for the digital
avionics system of the MRCA (Tornado) at British Aircraft Corporation (later
BAe) at Warton.
In the rank of Squadron Leader Mr Moir served at the Government
Communication Headquarters Cheltenham, was Officer Commanding, Electronic
Engineering Squadron, RAF Leuchars and the Ministry of Defence (Air)
Directorate of Tornado Engineering and Supply.
In 1980 he joined Smiths Industries, becoming involved in systems integration
using MIL-STD-1533B data bus hardware on the BAe Experimental Aircraft
Programme. From 1984 he has been Group Leader of the Utilities Systems
Management Group.
Mr Moir has presented many Technical Papers at home and abroad and
written a number of Technical Articles. In 1979 he was awarded the RAF Strike
Command Smallwood Trophy for a submission on Electronic Warfare. He is a
Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Chartered Engineer and a Member
of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

The flight control systems described in Chapter Five are associated with aircraft
primary flight control, that is the control of the aircraft flight path. However there
are other control systems — sometimes termed aircraft management systems — which
are necessary for the successful completion of a route leg or mission. These
systems fall broadly into the following categories:
— Engine or Propulsion Control — those systems associated with the control of
the engine or reheat control and involving the metering of fuel, control of air
bleed, reheat nozzle position and so on.
— Flight/Performance Management — those systems which manage the flight profile
of the aircraft, selection of flight routes and navigation beacons, procedural
direction, and advise upon the performance of the aircraft in certain phases of
flight.
— Utilities Management Systems — those systems which control aircraft systems
other than flight control or propulsion are called utilities systems. These systems

115
 Aircraft Management Systems

include fuel, hydraulics, environmental, secondary power, electrical and some

smaller systems.
— Health and Usage Management — this embraces the monitoring of primary
aircraft systems to check performance, identify incipient failures before they
result in catastrophic damage and to generally assist in maintaining the good
health of the aircraft.
— Weapon/Stores Management — those systems associated with the safe carriage
and accurate release of a wide range of weapons or stores.

ENGINE AND PROPULSION CONTROL

To illustrate the application of electronics to engine control, two examples of the

typical engine control task will be outlined. Both the examples chosen relate to
turbofan engines — one military and one civil. However the techniques described
may apply equally to turboprop or helicopter engines.
For many years the metering of fuel to the engine was accomplished by engine
mounted hydro-mechanical systems. Primary throttle demands to the engine were
signalled by means of control rods and cranks, in some cases flexible cables called
Teleflex were used. During the 1950s, Ultra Electric Controls — now part of
Dowty Electronics — developed an electrical throttle system which was used on
the Proteus engine used to power the Bristol Britannia and the Tyne used to
power the Vickers Vanguard and Short Belfast. These signalling links were, in
fact, speed and temperature limiters which did not break into the engine inner
control loop.
The desire for better, more economical fuel control, and the evolution of more
demanding control loops meant that some improvement over the hydro- mechanical
methods was needed. The implementation of greater control was leading towards
authority engine control and it was natural that as electronic components became
more reliable, electronics would be employed. Initially these developments used
transistors in full authority analogue systems, first for the Olympus 320 designed
for the TSR 2 (Fig. 3.1) cancelled in 1965. Later, the Olympus 593 used to power
the Anglo-French Concorde (Fig. 6.1) utilized a similar system. Later modifications
introduced a micro processor based Built-In-Test (BIT) system to this design.
The evolution of miniaturized, high reliability solid-state electronic circuits in
the form of Large Scale Integration (LSI) integrated circuits gave the technology
required to implement digital rather than analogue control. This technology
became available during the 1970s, furthermore the steep increase in crude oil and
hence fuel prices during 1974 gave a strong impetus to save fuel. This pressure
to seek more fuel-efficient solutions was felt by military and civil operators alike.
Further engine hardware developments also required engine control to be more
precise and more reliable than the existing analogue systems. The availability of
digitally controlled, software driven systems also yielded significant benefits of
flexibility during development and for maintenance once in service.
A typical engine control layout for a high performance military engine is as
shown in Fig. 6.2. The main elements of control are:
— Intake control — control of the intake is required to match a wide range of air
intake conditions to provide a smooth flow of subsonic air into the engine.
— These systems are usually supplied by electronic manufacturers not associated
with the engine manufacturer; systems designed in recent years are almost
invariably digitally controlled.

116
 Engine and propulsion control

Fig. 6.1 The Anglo-French — Main engine control — the main engine control function is concerned with
Concorde metering of fuel to ensure smooth running and acceleration characteristics
throughout the flight envelope. The correct relationship between the low
pressure (NL) and high pressure (NH) compressor and turbine shafts must be
maintained in twin-spool engines. During certain phases of operation it may be
necessary to trim or ‘top temperature limit’ the engine to avoid overheating and
damage to the turbine blades.
— Reheat/nozzle control — reheat control is the metering of fuel to the reheat or
afterburner section of the engine to increase engine thrust for take-off or
combat; it is used almost exclusively for military engines with the exception of
Concorde which uses reheat for take-off. Nozzle control assures the optimum
nozzle area to maximise propulsive thrust for given flight conditions.
Now that the ‘typical’ military engine has been described it has to be stated that
two of the foremost front line fighter aircraft in service with the Royal Air Force
differ from the engine described. These are the RB 199 which powers the
Tornado GR1, F-2 and F-3 aircraft and the Pegasus which powers the Harrier
GR1 and GRS.
The Tornado RB 199 differs in having a triple-spool engine. Engine control
is exercised by a Main Engine Control Unit (MECU), a dual channel analogue
control system produced by Lucas Aerospace. The MECU is fitted to the GR1

117
 Aircraft Management Systems

EGT AJ

Reheat
control
control
control

T1 —Intake temperature
ntrol
contro
NL —Low speed compressor
NH — High speed compressor
TBT — Turbine blade temperature
EGT — Exhaust gas temperature
AJ -—-— Nozzle area

Fig. 6.2 Typical engine and F-2 Tornado aircraft and performs well after initial problems. The MECU
control for a military is not engine-mounted, but is located in a conditioned avionic bay forward of the
aircraft engine undercarriage. The improved environment of the conditioned bay as opposed to
being mounted on the engine improves the reliability of the unit because of the
lower ambient temperatures and a more sympathetic vibration environment.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the UK developed a digital control unit
which is a form, fit and function replacement for the MECU. This unit is called
a Digital Engine Control Unit (DECU) and it is fitted to the later Marks of RB
199 installed in the Tornado F-3 and the Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP)
demonstrator aircraft. This system employs a high integrity dual channel digital
controller with a third simplex channel controlling reheat.’
The Pegasus is a twin-spool engine with the spools rotating in opposite direc-
tions to balance out torque effects in hover mode. It does not employ reheat, so
far, owing to the difficulty in establishing stable re-heat combustion conditions
with the four vectored nozzles. .
The latest versions entering service on the GR 5 (AV-8B) employ a Dowty
& Smiths Industries Controls (DSIC) Digital Engine Control System (DECS). This
unit consists of a dual lane system in which each lane utilises dual 16 bit micro-
processor control — one channel being in control while the other acts as a monitor.
This is known as a dual-dual configuration (dual lane/dual channel) and it clearly
serves to improve integrity. A failure in the active control channel will be detected
by the monitor channel and control will be switched to the other lane. Full control
may therefore be exercised without any degradation in performance. Finally, in
the unlikely event that a second failure renders the second lane unserviceable,
a simple mechanical reversion exists to act as a ‘get-you-home’ system. A further
difference between the MECU/DECU fitted on Tornado and the DECS is that
the latter is engine-mounted rather than being located in an avionic bay. The high
temperatures experienced in the engine bay necessitate the use of fuel cooling to
maintain the electronic components at a respectable temperature.
The apparent differences in the integrity and reversion philosophy between the
RB 199 and the Pegasus are explained by the fact that the Tornado is powered
118 ‘
 Engine and propulsion control

by two RB 199s while the Harrier is powered by only a single Pegasus. Both the
RB 199 DECU and the Pegasus DECS are full-authority digital engine control
(FADEC) implementations.
The future trend for military aircraft engine control units is to embed a MIL-
STD-1553B data bus remote terminal which allows communication with the rest
of the aircraft avionic and aircraft systems. The European Fighter Aircraft (EFA)
in Europe and the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) in the US are almost certain
to adopt this solution by way of increased systems integration. Other advanced
developments include the demonstration of integrated flight/propulsion control on
the F-15 STOL Manoeuvre Technology Demonstrator described in Chapter Five.
The high by-pass turbofan engines presently used by most of the modern
airliners represent a different control problem to that posed by the high perform-
Fig. 6.3 Typical engine ance military fighter. The main differences are that the civil engine will generally
control for a civil have a higher by-pass ratio and will have no need for intake and reheat control.
aircraft The emphasis for the civil operator is primarily one of fuel economy. A typical high

i
b a a / iti

Pilot NL —Low speed compressor

Thrust NH —High speed compressor
demand
governor TET -— Turbine entry temperature
NDOT — Acceleration control
IGV__ — Inlet guide vane
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ey Wer pe

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f

119
 Aircraft Management Systems

by-pass engine together with the associated control parameters is shown in Fig.
6:3,
The pilot input power lever is used to apply a power demand into the engine
control system. This demand is effectively aiming to control LP shaft speed. This
demand may be affected or modified by a number oflimiters which alter it to ensure
that certain engine parameters do not exceed specific limits. An HP compressor
(NH limiter) will prevent NH from falling below set limits. Conversely, LP
compressor (NL) and HP turbine entry temperature (TET) limiters will avoid
excess temperature and prevent damage to the LP compressor and HP turbine
respectively. The purpose of the modified power demand is to effectively exercise
NDOT (N) or acceleration control. This demand will be mixed with the engine
fuel schedules; it may also be subject to NH and intermediate shaft (HI) limiters.
Certain engines may also exercise control over inlet guide vanes (IGVs) though
this control is different in nature from the air intake control used on fighter
aircraft.
The move towards FADEC for civil engines has been more cautious than for
military engines. However it has been recognized that FADEC systems are lighter
that their electro-mechanical predecessors. Also by employing a FADEC system
it is far easier to modify the engine performance by means of software changes.
During the development of the Pratt and Whitney PW2037 engine used on some
Boeing 757s it was common to make minor changes in software from one day to
the next, and to completely rewrite (re-compile) the control software within a week.
Furthermore, the electronic control system has access to far more data than was
previously possible thereby making development testing a quicker learning expe-
rience than before. This additional data may also be used for engine health
monitoring and to ease the maintenance burden once the aircraft has entered
service.
The Hamilton Standard unit fitted to the PW2037 is said to have a mean time
between failure (MTBF) of over 30,000 hours, equivalent to about ten years’
operation in a typical transport aircraft. Also the in-built redundancy permits the
unit to continue to operate once a single failure has occurred. In the case of the
PW2037 the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decreed that the control
unit may be operated for a further 150 hours after a single failure, before the unit
must be replaced. This allows the airline the flexibility of flying the aircraft to a
main base, locating a spare or carrying forward the defect until another servicing
activity before the item is replaced. The use of BIT aids diagnosis and it is claimed
that the Pratt and Whitney FADEC may be replaced in around 15 minutes as
opposed to three hours for the hydro-mechanical equivalent.’
New propulsion devices such as the Un-Ducted Fan (UDF) and the V2500
Super Fan will place further demands upon the use of electronic means for the
solution of the engine control problem. The search for better controlled, more fuel
efficient engines will be a powerful stimulus towards achieving more cost-effective,
profit bearing operations.

FLIGHT/PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

The development of digital technology introduced the possibility of using

computers on the flight deck to improve navigation, aid fuel efficiency and reduce
crew workload. It became possible to use computers to guide the aircraft along
complex routes using lateral guidance. It also became feasible to include vertical
guidance to calculate optimum cruise altitudes and to determine the best combi-
120 iY
 Flight performance management
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nation of autothrottle setting and speed during climb and descent. An example of
a typical route section is shown in Fig. 6.4.
The first system to attempt flight management was that designed by Lockheed
in association with Arma for the Lockheed L-1011 TRISTAR. This system used a
combination of radio and inertial sensors for lateral guidance but possessed only
limited vertical guidance.
The recognition of the need for a flight management computer system (FMCS)
led to the definition of this type or system as ARINC 702. The basic architecture
of a typical system is shown in Fig. 6.5. The computing tasks are undertaken by
a Flight Management Computer Unit which interfaces via ARINC 429 data links
to a range of aircraft sensors which will usually include the following:
121
 Aircraft Management Systems

Fig. 6.5 Flight management

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TiasiAMRS 1-H} —> General
data
RSA 2 }-——(A}y}—> output 2
DFS
TiRSAMASS_-——(Ay— (receiver
tuning)
fo ——— Ge
oe
a
[e hte (ase Pay
te oa
<i o——_»
[
Fuelfiow2_-——(1)}—s Electronic
(eGEREE een (Pee flight

eo a
instruments

Ms ———d——— ———(}—Frtest
reo]
eS a —— (= (Fataloader_]
@ Reserved m4 L
growth

Inputs: Outputs:
VOR 1 and 2 Flight instruments
DME 1 and 2 Flight recorder
ILS Inertial reference set
Air Data 1 and 2 Flight control computers
Inertial reference set/attitude & Flight warning computers
heading reference set 1, 2 and 3 Electronic flight instruments
Fuel flow/fuel quantity Other EMCS (if a dual
Data loading (data base renewal installation is fitted)
or modification)
122 \
 Flight performance management

Inputs:
Other FMCS (if a dual
installation is fitted)
Chronometer

The system conveys information to and receives information from the crew by
means of a control and display unit (CDU). A typical CDU -— that used on the
Smiths Industries FMCS is shown in Fig. 6.6. The display comprises a CRT

Fig. 6.6 Control and display

unit (CDU) of the
Smiths Industries
flight management
system which
rovides primary
es and display : CRZ PERF ORM
interface between
the pilots and the
flight control and
navigation systems of cat
the Airbus. Smiths s 123e@ #35°9
Industries.
237: 34*%4

12 1
2

123
 Aircraft Management Systems

display, alpha-numeric keyboard, dedicated function keys, and alongside the CRT,
line keys to give access to lateral (left keys) and vertical (right keys) guidance
information.
The primary functions of the FMCS are defined as follows’:

— preparation of flight plans including diversion to alternative airfields;

— synthesis of navigation information from all available sources;
— automatic frequency selection and tuning of VOR/DME receivers;
— lateral guidance by coupling the FMCS to the automatic flight control system;
— optimization of the flight path in the vertical plane to achieve minimum cost or
shortest flight time;
— guidance in the vertical plane by means of coupling the FMCS to the auto-
throttle and automatic flight control system;
— prediction of flight parameters along the aircraft route;
— display management by coupling the FMCS to the electronic flight instrument
system (EFIS).

The Smiths Industries FMCS uses a distributed architecture of the type shown
in Fig. 6.7*. Performance and navigation functions are each undertaken using a
dual INTEL 8086 configuration used in conjunction with an INTEL 8087 maths
co-processor plus the associated program memory (UV PROM) and working
memory (CMOS RAM). The magnetic bubble-based data bank memory is managed
by an INTEL 8088 and a further INTEL 8088 is used as an ARINC 429
input/output controller.

Fig. 6.7. FMCS — computing e Performance @ Dual INTEL 8086 16-bit micro-
architecture Royal ‘ ised : micro computer — processors
Processing Working e INTEL 8087 maths co-processor
Aeronautical Society
memory e@ UV EPROM programme memory
e@ CMOS RAM working memory
e Navigation e Dual INTEL 8086 16-bit micro-
Programme 5
memory micro computer processors
Processing Working e INTEL 8087 maths co-processor
memory e UV EPROM programme memory
e CMOS RAM working memory

Data bank memory

sub-system

@ Data bank e Magnetic bubble non-volatile

memory memory
Arinc 429 I/O e Controller with INTEL 8088
sub-system microprocessor

@ ARINC I/O @ Custom LSI transmitter-receiver

@ INTEL 8088 microprocessor

Discrete I/O

@ Discrete I/O e 56 Input discretes

@ 16 output discretes

The Electrically Programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM) hosts the oper-
ational program for the system and cannot be changed without removing the
memory devices from the unit. The Random Access Memory (RAM) provides a
scratchpad facility for dynamic data and calculations. The bubble memory is a

124
 Flight performance management

memory type which has the capability of retaining the aircraft, engine and route
data in a non-volatile form (that is the memory contents are not lost when power
to the unit is removed). The bubble or data bank memory is the only one which
may be altered on the aircraft. This is necessitated by the fact that the data bank
has to be updated every 28 days in order to keep navigation data up to date.
As the system is powered up, the crew will be given confirmation of the aircraft
and engine type, program data base details (identification) and an indication that
the data base is still valid. Operation of the start key will enable the flight plan
to be constructed with the insertion of route particulars: alternative airfield, wind
velocity, temperature, cruise altitude and others. Insertion of the start and desti-
nation airfields will enable the crew to select a stored route or enter a new one
by means of airways designators and waypoints. In most cases it is likely that a
stored (airline preferred) route will be used with the crew having the option of
selecting alternative airfields based upon weather forecasts in the destination
region. At this stage insertion of precise aircraft position at the departure gate
will enable the latitude and longitude to be inserted into the inertial reference
system to commence platform alignment. Further checks by the crew will ensure
that aircraft fuel load, centre of gravity position, fuel allowances, reserve fuel,
take-off and landing weight are all correctly entered and within prescribed limits.
Once this is complete the crew may review the entire plan for correctness and
accept it as valid. If required the crew may also present information relating to
the departure airport such as active runway identification, runway bearing and
length, primary approach aid frequency and so on.
Once lined-up on the departure runway ready for take-off the crew will then
be able to call upon a range of displays for different situations some of which are
summarised as follows:
— Take-off performance — data may be displayed which relates to take-off
including V1, VR, V2; flap and slat retraction speeds; climbing speed, noise
abatement height, acceleration height and normal and engine-out departures.
— Departure/climb routeing — during climb-out the estimated (and actual) times
of arriving at waypoints, distance to a waypoint, expected flight level at a
waypoint, etc., may be displayed.
— Performance — performance may be determined according to a number of criteria,
perhaps the two most obvious being maximum performance and economy
performance. In the cruise, options may be given together with predictions of
destination arrival time and fuel state. This may indicate the desirability of
climbing to a new flight level after a certain distance or time flown. Similarly
during the descent, a range of options may be presented showing the effects
of an early or late descent and an indication of any slight alterations in power
settings necessary to maintain optimum performance.
— Fuel management — the aircraft fuel state and the effect upon routeing, holding
in a pattern or on diversion options can be displayed to the crew. Fuel consump-
tion may be compared with that which was predicted and extra (or lesser)
holding time calculated and displayed.
— Engine-out performance — should an aircraft engine need to be shut down for
any reason, the system has the facility of presenting vital information to the crew
regarding performance (engine-out ceiling), local terrain information relative to
that ceiling and any guidance information which may be necessary to avoid high
ground. This enables the crew to proceed with confidence that the aircraft
performance is adequate for the terrain being overflown.

125
 Aircraft Management Systems

~ Descent/approach phase — similar information will be available to the crew

during the descent mode to that existing during climb and cruise. The aircraft
may be controlled down to touch-down in accordance with the standard
approach procedures for the airport. This mode will also assist the aircraft in
engaging an approach aid such as the ILS localiser. The approach phase will
also display to the crew target values of airspeed, power setting and rate of
descent to achieve the necessary approach speed when established on the
glideslope. Wind velocities along and across the runway may be calculated and
displayed.
— Go- around performance — in the event of a missed approach the pilot may be
presented with information relating to the overshoot; this is likely to be similar
to that displayed during take-off. Lateral guidance information will provide the
crew with the necessary data to initiate a second approach or to commence a
diversion to an alternative airport.

The development of the FMCS was a new experience for the manufacturers
producing this type of system. It is fair to say that most of them grossly under-
estimated and then struggled with the size of the software development task. Not
the least of the problems is the enormous data base which is required, bearing in
mind that a particular aircraft type in an airline may be required to fly a wide range
of routes, each with particular navigation and airport information. This problem
is compounded by the fact that the data base needs to be updated every 28 days
to maintain its currency. This in turn generates an on-going software update and
maintenance task of significant proportions. However against these difficulties, the
continuous pressure to extract additional performance coupled with economy and
the need to reduce crew workload mean that the FMCS will be more widely used
and enhanced in forthcoming years. For the experiences of a supplier at the
forefront of FMCS development see Ref’.

UTILITIES MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The term utility system or utilities systems is somewhat loosely applied to those
airframe systems not associated with avionics or displays, flight control or weapons
release. In practice these systems perform many of the house-keeping functions
associated with flying the aircraft. Typical systems are:

— Fuel quantity indication — Wheel brakes and anti-skid

— Fuel management — Electrical power generation control
— Hydraulic system control and and monitoring
indication — Engine and associated services
— Environmental control — Aircraft lighting
— Secondary power system control — Probe heating
— Landing gear control and
indication
Some of these systems are vital for the safe operation of the aircraft. Incorrect
operation of the fuel system could cause a total loss of engine power; loss of
hydraulic pressure could cause the loss of the aircraft no matter how sophisticated
the flight control system. Total loss of electrical power would be disastrous for
many modern aircraft.. The importance of these systems is attested by the redun-
dancy features inherent in system design. An aircraft may possess two, three or
even four hydraulic systems depending upon the integrity required and the degree
\
126
 Utilities management systems

of dependence of aircraft airworthiness upon the correct functioning of these

systems. Other systems may be duplicated to avoid inconvenience following system
failure. Still others may only be simplex in implementation as their failure may
induce only minor difficulties. In practice, for a passenger-carrying aircraft these
systems are likely to be at least dual or standby redundant, and possibly triplex
or quadruplex redundant.
Control of these systems has previously been exercised in discrete or inde-
pendent sub-systems. In other words, each system has had its own dedicated
control and indication panels, switches, wiring control units, etc. While this has
been acceptable in the past the moves towards modern avionic systems are leading
to greater integration and more efficient use of electronic resources. The devel-
opments of the modern electronic or ‘glass’ cockpits are causing major rational-
isation in cockpit design with the former cluttered cockpits increasingly inclined
to use electronic flight instruments systems (EFIS) and flight management computer
system (FMCS) displays. The disappearance of the flight engineer from the crew
complement of many modern airliners has removed the need for the conventional
engineer’s panel with banks of instruments. This has placed a greater reliance on
cockpit automation to keep pilot workload within reasonable limits. Similarly the
imposition of greater workloads in the modern combat aircraft is dictating that tasks
and decisions regarding aircraft systems must be increasingly removed from the
crew. These tasks and functions require centres of intelligence which allow many
tasks to be undertaken on behalf of the aircrew without any knowledge or inter-
vention on their part.
Many of these conventional control systems require immense quantities of wiring
to interconnect the control units, displays and components. Wiring is heavy,
requires a large number of connectors and is expensive to build and install in the
aircraft. Therefore aircraft manufacturers are increasingly turning towards multi-
plexed data buses as a way of reducing the weight and quantity of wiring and
connectors. Typical data buses in common usage are ARINC 429 in the civil field
and MIL-STD-1553B in the military; these data bus standards are described in
more detail in Chapter Two. It has been reported by the Boeing Company that
a weight saving of around 2000 pounds might be possible if multiplexing tech-
niques were widely used on a Boeing 747. Experienced aircraft engineers are well
aware of the disproportionate number of problems caused by poorly mating aircraft
connectors. Recent work by the US Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories
has suggested that around 40 per cent of the defects incurred by a modern aircraft
avionic system may be attributed to connector problems. Whatever the savings,
clearly they will differ from one aircraft to another for a variety of reasons; there
is little doubt that these advantages are seen as increasingly attractive.
The use of redundant data buses (MIL-STD-1553B) and multiple processing
elements assists in system redundancy and availability. For the civil operator this
means increased flexibility in operating the aircraft. Modern electronics are less
likely to fail in the first place; the better Built-In-Test (BIT) that digital systems
offer also result in better diagnosis when a failure does occur. Better redundancy
allows the operator greater flexibility in returning the aircraft ty a main operating
base for repair when a fault occurs.
For the military operator, improved reliability increases the chances of the air-
craft being available to conduct a specific mission, In military parlance this is called
a ‘force multiplier effect’. Furthermore, the availability in combat of redundancy
increases the battle damage tolerance of the aircraft, allowing it to return to base
with damage which might previously have caused its loss.
127
 Aircraft Management Systems

The use of multiplexed data buses and distributed processing elements also
lends the system naturally to the Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS)
described later in this chapter. There is a ready access to a wide range of system
parameters and better monitoring of these signals can lead to an improvement in
flight safety and airworthiness.
These pressures and advantages are therefore causing airframe manufacturers
increasingly to consider the integration of the aircraft utility systems into an inte-
grated Utilities Management System (UMS). Whereas this type of system has initially
been considered for combat aircraft, serious consideration is being given to
applications on civil aircraft. The first system of this type is flying on the UK
Experimental Aircraft Programme. The system has flown many hours during a most
rigorous test programme and has been acclaimed by development pilots and
groundcrews alike for the reduction in [Link] ease of diagnosis and main-
tenance.
As this system is relatively new, and as the development is so typical of the
fusion of many disciplines required on modern development programmes, a joint
account of the development seen from the eyes of the senior British Aerospace
and Smiths Industries engineers involved is adduced?.
The utility systems of a combat aircraft are those which are responsible for the
continuing and safe operation of the aircraft rather than mission critical avionic
systems or those concerned with flight control and engine control. Over a period
of time these predominantly mechanical systems have incorporated electronics to
achieve increasing accuracy of control, better performance, improved monitoring
and failure detection.
In the late 1970s when successors to Tornado were being sought it appeared
from a study of customer requirements that a small high performance, highly
manoeuvrable aircraft was required. Taking account of the small airframe associ-
ated with such an aircraft, and the emergence of cheap and readily available digital
computers, it was felt that smaller, lighter electronic equipment would be required
and must be available within the timescale of a new project.
The use of serial multiplex data transmission for avionic systems and the new
techniques of cockpit display and control presentation at the time was leading to
major discrepancies between the control philosophy of utility systems and the tech-
niques used in avionics. This is illustrated in Fig. 6.8 where the discrepancy
between the many single-function control units and the data bus connected
displays may be seen.
In addition the customer was seeking major improvements in performance, reli-
ability and maintainability to reduce the cost of ownership.
The utility systems of the aircraft pose special control problems because of their
inherent ‘single’ nature. They do not fall into the category of information
processing systems such as avionics nor of the high integrity servo control, multiple
redundant category of flight control. Falling somewhere in between, they are a
collection of systems with varying integrity requirements, some simplex in nature,
others dual redundant or duplex. A feature of the systems is the large number of
hardware derived inputs and the need to switch power to many output devices.
British Aerospace embarked on a pilot study to examine the feasibility of central-
ising the control and management of utility systems. As a result of this initial work
a programme was initiated with MoD funding to examine utility systems as a total
concept to see if a universal solution could be achieved. This study started by
considering the control of utilities on an in-service aircraft to determine what
shortcomings existed.
128 -
 Utilities management systems
Fig. 6.8 Problems inherent in
Communi- Flight Avionics Stores
interfacing with the cations controls systems management
modern cockpit system system
Royal Aeronautical
ISEB |technology
Future high
Society
> military
Electronic cockpit aircraft
architecture

Existing
Dedicated
plane nit Control Control Control Control |_ | Control \ utility
hans hg :(S) | for other for fuel for for APU for other | ( systems
the utility. utility system | {hydraulic ||system utility control
systems systems system systems

ve 2)
_——
Utility systems components (e.g. valves, pumps, sensors)

MFD = multi-function display

The study found that an individual approach involved numerous design engi-
neers sometimes from different departments, which resulted in a lack of consistency
and in interface problems where systems had to inter-communicate. Control units
were separately specified. A large number were required. Utilization was low and
the cost of installing the equipment was relatively high.
It was noted that some 25 items of equipment were used to control the utility
systems on one particular aircraft. All of these systems were single-function. For
example the equipment used to start the engines was used for only two minutes
per flight. Units were installed in the airframe wherever a space could be found
and connected to their sensors, other equipments, and the cockpit with bundles
of discrete wiring which was heavy, space consuming, costly and vulnerable to
external radiated fields.
The study proceeded by visualising the control of the set of utility systems as
a single control problem, as shown in Fig. 6.9, to which a single solution would
be pursued to meet the following requirements:

Fig. 6.9 Solution to Flight Avionics Stores

interfacing with the Communications controls systems
modern cockpit (Radar, IN, etc)
Royal Aeronautical
Society

Electronic cockpit
“ system ;
MFD MFD

IUTTTNMTTTTTITIT|
All utility systems components
f (sensors, valves, pumps)

129
 Aircraft Management Systems

— To provide a means of controlling and monitoring for the set of utility

systems
— To provide sufficient automation to reduce pilot workload whilst maintaining
the integrity of the individual systems
— To reduce the aircraft wiring and to provide a suitable interface with the data
bus
— To reduce the number of items of equipment required and to minimize their
mass, volume and dissipation
— To capitalise on technology to provide improved monitoring of the system’s
performance by use of continuous built-in test.

In the work which followed alternative system architectures were examined and
the resulting solution is shown in Fig: 6.10. This shows an interface with an

Fig. 6.10 Simplified EAP Multi- Multi- Multi-

architecture Royal function function function
Aeronautical Society display ,

OS A Sc
|RT10 | | BC |
|RT10|
RT10 |
oo pee et
management management
processor processor
Mechanical ian Mechanical
components 2 components

Reversionary
instruments —— 4
Power Systems
plant — management management |__| ae
control }_4 ro — all

Reversionary
=I =
instruments Maintenance ee Reversionary
data panel LJ instruments
eg

Utilities
bus

130
 EAP systems

Fig. 6.11 Comparison of Conventional control system Utilities system management

conventional and
integrated utilities
control Royal
Aeronautical Society

Features Features
— 20 to 25 Dedicated LRU’s — Four dedicated LRU’s
— 6 Power switching relay units — Dedicated 1553B data bus
— Extensive overhead of wiring, — Distributed intelligence
SS SU iy Vays — Integral power switching devices
— Dedicated instruments/display panels — Interfaces with modern digital
cockpit and multi-function displays

avionics data bus and the displays suite. The intention was that the solution should
comprise a number of equipments inter-connected on a MIL-STD-1553B data
bus. This system would be located in the airframe so that inter-connecting wiring
would be reduced to a minimum. The equipments were to be designed to provide
suitable interfaces for input and output devices for the data bus and to provide
a means of control using a microprocessor. Figure 6.11 illustrates the key differ-
ences between conventional control of utility systems and an integrated systems
management approach.

EAP SYSTEMS

British Aerospace at Warton adopted a Utilities Management System as one of the

prime areas of high technology demonstration for introduction into the EAP (see
Chapter Five).
The programme objectives of the EAP were to demonstrate the following key
areas of technology:
— Carbon fibre composite (CFC) structures
— Active control technology (ACT)
— Advanced avionics including multi-function colour displays, data buses and
UMS
— Advanced aerodynamic design.
The major utility systems of EAP are listed on Fig. 6.13 which also shows the
location of the four Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) which control them. These
LRUs are termed Systems Management Processors (SMPs).
The system block diagram is shown in Fig. 6.12. In it the four LRUs are shown
connected to a dual redundant data bus. Bus control is located in SMP A and
SMP B.
Also connected to the data bus is a maintenance data panel (MDP) and two
computers of the flight control system (FCS). The bus is terminated at each end
and a spare stub is brought out to the panel of the MDP to allow connection of
test equipment to monitor bus traffic.
131
 Aircraft Management Systems

Fig. 6.12 EAP — major utility Avionics bus

systems Royal
Aeronautical Society

RT10 =n BtG
Systems Systems
management management
processor Sissi

Mechanical
A |jRI=
= ——
RT
Mechanical
components components

Reversionary
instruments
Power Power
plant -—— management plant
control epee control

Ale |
|
=|
Powerplant|
re
Ground Maintenance
test port =|, datapanel E—@_]
RT10 R17 -—

Reversionary Utilities
instruments

Fig. 6.13 EAP — utilities

architecture Royal
Aeronautical Society

Main functional groups

@ Engine control and indication
@ Fuel management and fuel gauging
@ Hydraulic system control and indication,
undercarriage indication and monitoring. Wheel brakes
@ Environmental control system, cabin temp. control
@ Secondary power system
¢ Lox contents, electrical generation and battery monitoring,
probe heating, emergency power unit

The lines shown directed to mechanical systems are the multiple connections
to the components of the systems. An indication of the numbers of signals and
power drives is shown in Fig. 6.14.
The input/output characteristics of the utility systems are typified by a large
‘
132
 FAP systems

Fig. 6.14 LAP — summary of © Engine and associated systems — 141 Signals/33 Power drives
parameters Royal © Fuel management and gauging — 206 Signals/36 Power drives
Aeronautical Societ J © Hydraulic systems — 146 Signals/13 Power drives
© ECS/cabin temperature — 59 Signals/14 Power drives
© Secondary power systems — 46 Signals/ 7 Power drives
© Miscellaneous systems — 34 Signals/ 7 Power drives
Total: 632 Signals
110 Power drives

number of discrete states: analogue inputs relating to rotational speed, linear and
angular position, temperature, fluid level and pressure. In cases where a control
loop is closed, analogue drives may also be required. The use of distributed
microprocessors permits an almost unlimited capability of polling the large number
of interface signals. Access to the aircraft systems data is therefore far greater than
ever previously possible, allowing greater scope for trend and system health
monitoring. The provision of maintenance data logging or recording systems inter-
faced with the utility systems data bus further increases this capability.
Typical input/output signals are:
Inputs: Outputs:
Discretes DC discretes
Potentiometers DC power drives
Pulse probes Low voltage analogues
Platinum resistance bulbs High current servodrives
Thermistors Low current servodrives
Pressure transducers
AC synchro/resolvers
Frequency modulation

To illustrate how each SMP handles the data and performs its task a generalized
SMP architecture is shown in Fig. 6.15.
Inputs from system sensors are acquired on a number of interface cards segregated
according to system function to maintain inter-system separation. Signals are
acquired from position sensors, pressure and temperature sensors, etc., and are
used by the CPU to perform its control algorithms.

Fig. 6.15 Generalised systems

management
processors (SMP) MIL-STD-15538B interface
architecture Royal (bus control
Aeronautical Society where required)

133
 Aircraft Management Systems

Outputs to pumps, valves, actuators, etc., are switched by relays. Transistor

drives are used to drive servomotors.
Inputs and outputs to data bus connected systems are routed through a remote
terminal associated with each processor Segregation of the input/output circuitry
associated with different utility systems was a prime aim. A situation where one
interface card failure could affect more than one system, possibly with disastrous
results, was not permissible.
Throughout the design, care has been taken to maximise fault tolerance. As well
as the segregation of the systems input/output circuitry already mentioned it was
also recognised that different systems required different levels of redundancy.
Accordingly, Smiths Industries and British Aerospace worked closely together in
the definition stage to ensure that these Jevels were met within the six distributed
computing and data bus elements. The simpler solution of replicating all the
computing independently for each system would have been more expensive and
would have significantly increased system weight. The system availability and
resistance to battle damage offer significant advantages over conventional systems.
A typical example of interfacing with the hardware of a major system is shown
in Fig. 6.16. Here an exploded 3-D diagram of the fuel system is depicted,
together with the main system functions. Also shown is the UMS hardware asso-
ciated with the interfacing, control and indication of the fuel system. Figure 6.17
shows the EAP cockpit with the starboard display panel indicating how the fuel
system information is portrayed to the pilot using data transferred from the utilities
data bus to the avionics data bus and thence to the display suite. A further example
is shown for undercarriage and brake systems in Fig. 6.18.

Fig. 6.16 EAP — Fuel system Fuel system hardware Fuel system
example Royal
Aeronautical Society

Functions
Fuel gauging/level sensing
Fuel transfer
Engine fuel feed
Refuel/defuel/fuel dump

The steps in the design process and the relationships between the documents
produced were controlled using a structured software design methodology. It was
important at all times not only to achieve a very precise specification of hardware
and software requirements, but also to ensure that both hardware and software
were integrated precisely and, further, that interfaces with other systems were
rigidly defined.
Software for system control was controlled rigidly from the beginning by the
134
‘
 FAP systems
Fig. 6.17 EAP cockpit layout
showing engine
display (port), ALT XFER

attitude display,
(centre) and fuel
system display
(starboard and
inset). Royal
Aeronautical Society
R LP OPEN
Ouoooo
ul ma rs

application of a formal method of obtaining requirements. This technique was

known as Semi-Automated Functional Requirements Analysis (SAFRA). A key feature
to this method was Controlled Requirement Expression (CORE) which specified
system information paths.
The software for the systems was controlled entirely by British Aerospace in
terms of specification of a tool set, integration and configuration control. After
selection of suppliers for various systems’ components and for some software from
specialist suppliers the actual allocation of responsibility for production resulted
in the workshare shown in Fig. 6.19.
In all some 400 K words of software are installed in the UMS which required
the generation of approximately 190 K words of unique code. This code was
produced fully documented from the specifications with a productivity of 4500
words per man-year. The number of changes produced at each stage of the soft-
ware life cycle shows that one of the objectives was achieved — detecting the
greatest majority of problems at an early stage of design and production to minimise
cost and programme disruption.
135
 Aircraft Management Systems

Fig. 6.18 EAP - Undercarriage/Brake Undercarriage and

undercarriage and system hardware Brake system
brake system
example Royal
Aeronautical Society

Functions
Undercarriage monitoring
Weight-on-wheel signalling
Normal brakes control
Emergency brakes control

Fig. 6.19 EAP — software

SAFRA based product
development
workshare Royal BAe
Systems engineering
Aeronautical Society Normalair Garrett
teams
Brakes Cabin temperature
Fuel management control
Miscellaneous
Environmental control
Hydraulics
Smiths Industries Undercarriage
Emergency power
Propulsion
Operating environment Operating environment
Bus control
Processor memory bit
LRU bit
System bit

Kurt Eichweber Aeritalia

Fuel gauging Secondary power system

Testing was conducted at a number of stages in the life cycle. Initially testing
was conducted in the host machine, then in the target in a complete set of brass-
board hardware, in individual mechanical system rigs for some systems, and finally
in integration test using aircraft hardware. This final test allowed all the integrated
systems to be constructed in rig form and the entire systems operated on the
ground to satisfy quality assurance requirements.
The hardware and software was then released to the aircraft and each utility
system functionally tested prior to flight.
To enable this comprehensive test programme to be achieved, the following
equipment was provided by Smiths Industries:
— Complete brassboard set of electrical model equipment
— Part-populated brassboard electrical model systems as part of sub-system test
136 :
 EAP systems

rigs for hydraulics, environmental control systems and secondary power systems.
— Four complete flight capable sets of equipment.

The system hardware design was based upon a range of standard electronic
cards and modules which were used in as many places as possible through the
system. In this respect the approach was identical in conception to the PAVE
PILLAR initiatives being pursued by the USAF. Out of a total of 72 cards utilised
throughout the system, the requirements are satisfied by 15 different designs.
The use of common card designs in the various locations considerably reduced
the design task and overall programme risk. For example, the Z8001 CPU card
is used eight times within the system while the discrete I/O card is utilised in
eleven different locations.
The basic building block for electronic packaging is the standard 3/4 ATR
module shown in Fig. 6.20. This module comprises two 3/4 ATR electronic cards
clamped together on to a mechanical wedgelock assembly which also provides the
means of attaching the modules within the LRUs. Copper heat sink overlay on
the surface of the card, together with the wedgelock assemblies, ensures a low
thermal resistance path to outside walls or cold walls. Relays were utilised in pref-
erence to solid state power switching devices for discrete power switching
purposes.

Fig. 6.20 EAP — standard

electronic
module Royal
Aeronautical Society

Upper printed circuit

card shown hinged
from module

Lower printed circuit

card showing copper
heat sink track with
components removed

Attachment guide of
, case wall for circuit
Wedgelock guide eck
mechanism affording . GP sat © eee nade
rigid support & providing - <<.
good thermal! conduction

While the choice of relays for a high technology demonstrator may be surprising,
several practical considerations dictated their selection.
Figure 6.21 is a photograph of one of the front LRUs (SMP A or B). Access
to 10 electronic modules is from the top of the LRU. The AC power supply unit
is located at the front of the LRU, the DC power supply unit at the rear. The
aircraft interfaces connect via a quadruple DPX connector at the rear of the LRU.
137
 Aircraft Management Systems

Fig. 6.21 EAP — line

replaceable unit
SMP A/B Smiths
Industries

The data bus connectors, test connector, bond connector and hold-downs are
positioned on the front face. The unit is cooled by means of an external air-wash
over the external finned surface. The LRU weight is 12 kg with a primary power
dissipation of 140 watts.
Figure 6.22 shows one of the rear LRUs (SMP C or D). Access to the 12
electronic modules is from the base of the unit. The power control enclosure forms
the top of the unit, and AC and DC power supply units are located on the right
hand and left hand sides respectively. As with the front LRUs, the aircraft systems
connectors are located at the rear, while the data bus, test, bond connectors and
hold-downs are located on the front face. The LRU is cooled indirectly by forced
air entering through two cooling inlets at the base of the unit and exhausting from
two outlets on the front face. These cooling air ducts form cold walls for the
electronic modules, and for each of the inner faces of the two power supply units.
The LRU weight is 20 kg with a primary power dissipation of 230 watts.
The reduction of the number of LRUs associated with the control of utility
systems offers obvious weight savings for the total system. The utilisation of
modern micro-circuit technology including data buses, microprocessors and very
high density memory technology gives significant reduction in electronic packaging
with an improvement in reliability. The adoption of an integrated systems approach
offers marked improvements in fault tolerance and in access to the aircraft systems
data. System trend and health monitoring capabilities are greatly improved.
The main benefits of adopting the UMS for a typical high performance fighter
have been assessed as more than 50 per cent reduction in installed weight and
138
-
 EAP systems
Fig. 6.22 EAP - line
replaceable unit
SMP C/D Smiths
Industries

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operating costs, and availability which is eight times as good.

The first lesson learned was that the job could be done and done efficiently.
The task was unique — a distributed system employing digital computing to control
a large number of systems and with a very large estimated software content, to be
performed on an experimental aircraft with a very tight timescale. It is a credit to
all who worked on the UMS project teams that the task was completed on time.
In addition to this, software and hardware from companies throughout the UK,
Italy and Germany was integrated successfully at a single site and qualified for
flight.
The key to the production of good software with high productivity was
undoubtedly the insistence on adherence to a rigid method of software control and
management. CORE especially proved to be a powerful tool, not only for design,
but also for fault finding. It was found to be very versatile in assisting the engin-
eering teams to rapidly locate a problem area in software and rectify it.
The drive to achieve commonality has obvious benefits for any potential
customer — the reduction in third line spares, etc. However the modular approach
yielded benefits that were unforeseen at the beginning of the project. That was
the flexibility of using the different sets of equipment as a supply of spares by
exchanging from rigs currently in use on lower priority tasks. This enabled faults
to be isolated to particular cards, to confirm the existence of faults in software
or hardware and generally helped to keep the job going when rig downtime seemed
unavoidable.
139
 Aircraft Management Systems

The use of computer-aided tools was a significant aid to document production

and modification. The tools associated with SAFRA were used as well as main-
frame text processors, minicomputer word processors, standard forms, and data
base tools. For future projects an engineering data base with mass storage, stan-
dard form documents and configuration control will be used.

HEALTH AND USAGE MONITORING (HUM)

Health monitoring and usage monitoring have evolved over the years to improve
the methods of monitoring critical aircraft components. The principle was first
applied to the monitoring of aircraft engines. This was for two prime reasons: the
most obvious was the need to prevent engine damage and possible hazard to the
aircraft following a catastrophic failure; the second was that such failures as well
as creating a hazard, also are very expensive to rectify. The detection of failures
incipient, before any real damage was incurred therefore became very important.
As the principle has evolved, monitoring has been extended to gearboxes and
transmission systems — particularly on helicopters - and for the monitoring of
aircraft structural life consumed.
The first British application of engine health monitoring was on British Euro-
pean Airways Trident fleet. Initially simple discrete inputs giving engine speed,
temperature, pressure and vibration levels were monitored and recorded on a suit-
able on-board tape recorder. This data could then be removed from the aircraft
for the necessary analysis using ground based equipment.
The availability of cheap microprocessors in the early 1970s enabled a further
development to be enbodied: that of including intelligence within the data-gath-
ering or aquisition unit. This permitted more exotic measurements and calculations
to be made of which low cycle fatigue is a typical example. Variations in engine
speed induce variations in stresses in the rotating assemblies of the engine.
Variations in stress in those parts of the engine most highly stressed can lead to
fatigue failure. Ideally, the best way to minimise variations in stress in an engine
is to run the engine as near to constant speed as possible at a throttle setting which
causes the least stressful regime. However, though this may be practical for an
engine powering a ship or an electrical generation turbine, it is not practical for
an aircraft engine. The aircraft engine stresses will vary from start-up from cold,
through taxying, full power take-off, climb, cruise, descent, holding pattern,
approach, landing and shut-down. It follows that, due to the manner in which an
aircraft is operated, these variations cannot be eliminated though they may be
minimised by sympathetic handling of the engine. The next best thing is to monitor
and measure stress cycles so that the effects of stress are better understood and
catastrophic failures may be forestalled.
The Low Cycle Fatigue Counter (LCFC) accepts inputs from the engine for such
parameters as engine speed (NL and NH) of compressors and turbines and
processes this information to calculate engine damage cycles. These damage cycles
are not related to actual damage but rather are a measure of the component life
being consumed by these critical items. Calculation of fatigue cycles based upon
this type of equipment fitted to the Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic team
Hawk aircraft have shown wide variations in the consumption of engine life. The
team leader who has to perform gentle manoeuvres so that the remainder of the
team may readily formate on him uses during a display around a tenth of the engine
life of one of the outside wingmen who have to continuously make throttle correc-
tions to maintain station in the formation.
\
140
 Health and usage monitoring (HUM)

Typical of the parameters monitored by a modern health and usage monitoring

system are:

Engine speeds Accelerations

Engine temperatures Vibration levels
Engine pressures Stress
Engine torque

The extension of HUMS is extended to the monitoring of gearboxes and trans-

mission trains on helicopters where the continued operation of the power train
is essential to airworthiness. This will enable the following parameters to be
recorded and analysed:
Engines: Transmission:

Power performance index Torque usage

Low cycle fatigue Diagnostic vibration
Thermal creep Qualitative wear debris monitor
Exceeding of limits (speeds and
temperatures)
A typical HUMS may be as shown in Fig. 6.23. The engine and other health
parameters are conditioned and converted into a suitable digital format for use by
the microprocessor. After the necessary calculations and algorithms have been
executed the data is stored in memory until the conclusion of the flight or until
a suitable route point is reached. Then the data may be extracted by means of a
data transfer unit (DTU), usually by means of an ARINC 429 or MIL-STD-

Fig. 6.23. Typical health and Monitored

usage monitoring parameters
system (HUMS)
| : Processor |
I
Engine | | |
|
jus | Hums |
Input | Algorithms |
signal
———> condit- | |
ioning | |
| | Non-volatile |
ie 2 | memory |

|
nee | |

ARINC 429 (Civil)

etc or
MIL. STD. 1553B (Military)

Data
transfer
unit

Off-
aircraft
analysis

141
 Aircraft Management Systems

1553B data bus; refer to Chapter Three. The DTU is then used to transfer the
health/usage data to a ground station for off-line analysis. More sophisticated
aircraft may have the capability of transferririg data on request via an automatic
communications and recording system (ACARS).
For a number of years aircraft have used similar techniques to measure the
consumption of fatigue for the airframe itself. The unit which undertook this func-
tion was called a fatigue meter and was located in the aircraft close to the centre
of gravity. The fatigue meter measures the number of normal accelerations sensed
within certain ‘G’ thresholds and displays the aggregate number of counts regis-
tered in each band. These counts were read from a series of counters on the front
face of the unit after each flight and registered in the aircraft servicing documents.
These counts were then analysed to assess the degree of fatigue being consumed
by the aircraft.
The problem with the fatigue meter was that although a very useful measure
of fatigue, it only measured the accelerations being experienced at the point in
the airframe where it was mounted. More likely, fatigue would be occurring at
critical locations in the aircraft structure such as the wing root attachment points
or the main spar or at hard points on the wing and fuselage where fuel tanks or
external stores may be carried. The fatigue meter therefore was only able to
present part of the picture. :
There is now an increased tendency towards systems which utilise strain gauges
at various points in the airframe so that monitoring may be applied in a more
selective fashion and include areas where structural stress may reasonably be
expected to be high. Such systems are sometimes called Structural Usage Monitoring
Systems (SUMS).
A development akin to the HUMS principle which has been in use for a number
of years is the accident data recorder which is associated with the rather gruesome
task of aircraft investigation. Accident data recorders or crash recorders are
rugged units which record vital aircraft parameters during flight and which can
be recovered from a crash site and used to construct the behaviour of the aircraft
in the minutes before the accident occurred. These ‘black box recorders’, which
are in fact coloured orange to assist in identification at the crash site, are often
keys in establishing the true cause of an accident. The Royal Aerospace Establish-
ment at Farnborough has specialised facilities capable of reading the recorder
traces and displaying them on a composite display which allows the aircraft flight
path to be quickly understood. It is also usual for aircraft to be fitted with a Cockpit
Voice Recorder (CVR) which records the conversations in the cockpit and which
may also assist in accident investigations.

STORES MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

During the First World War, when the protagonists began to realise the fighting
potential of the flying machine, attempts at arming aircraft were fairly crude.
Initially bombs were dropped by physically releasing them over the side of the
cockpit. Before the introduction of the first interrupter gear, guns were fired
straight through the propeller arc with crude deflector plates fitted to deter the
odd errant round which coincided with the propeller blade. Later, during the
Second World War, release systems became more sophisticated, though many
bombs were dropped. by mechanically activated bomb hooks.
The increasing use of electronics in the fire control systems of the second
generation jet fighter aircraft was to lead to increased integration of sensors and
‘
142
 Stores management systems

weapon release systems. The US North American F-86D (Sabre Dog) was the
first aircraft to boast the capability of automatically engaging a target blind without
the pilot needing to see the target. In the UK, the development of the Firestreak
and then Red Top air-to-air missile demanded increasingly sophisticated fire
control systems. The transition to the modern multi-role fighter aircraft with
multiple sensors and a wide range of weapon fits has demanded that the Stores
Management System (SMS) employ state-of-the-art-technology. This is needed
both because of increasing performance and the need to upgrade the overall
weapon system from time to time with improved or totally new sensors. These
sensors may either require or make possible the carriage of different weapons
options. If the SMS cannot handle the new weapons then the weapons system as
a whole is impotent.
A prime requirement of a weapon release system is that of accuracy. The timing
of the release pulse is clearly critical: at an aircraft speed of 400 knots a delay
of 100 milliseconds (1/10 second) will equate to an along-track error of almost
70 feet. The system is also commonly required to account for the different ballistic
characteristics of various types of weapon.
As well as accuracy, safety is a prime requirement. First, there is usually a high
integrity requirement placed upon the system which constrains the designer to
make safeguards against an accidental or inadvertent release during peace-time
training. However if the pilot needs to jettison his stores and fuel tanks in an
emergency — because of a loss in engine power, for example — then it is essential
that this feature should operate when required. Therefore the system will also have
important safeguards embodied to ensure that the Emergency Jettison of E/J facility
operates, otherwise the aircraft could be lost. Finally the system will need to inform
the pilot of the fusing (or priming) and arming state of the weapons being carried
so that incorrect or invalid selections are avoided.
A notional SMS which depicts the key elements is shown in Fig. 6.24. This
system presumes a single-seat fighter ground attack aircraft with a head-up display
(HUD) for primary weapon aiming. No radar or electro-optic sensors are assumed
available to aid weapon release; the system is, by present standards, a fairly basic
one. It has also been assumed that the host aircraft has four wing pylons and a
centreline carriage position: five weapon stations in all. The system is also assumed
to have provision for a gun and comprises the following units:
Pilot’s weapon aiming mode selector (WAMS) panel;
Control stick and throttle mounted controls;
Master armament selector switch;
Emergency jettison switch (guarded);
Dual-channel SMS computer;
Safety break;
Weapon station encoder/decoders:
— Left wing inboard and outboard station
— Centreline station
— Right wing inboard and outboard stations
Gun electronics unit.
The pilot’s WAMS panel presents all the information necessary regarding the
various weapon stations and the gun: weapons being carried, type and number,
fusing characteristics, etc. This panel enables the pilot to make the selections
required for a particular engagement; type of weapon or bomb, single weapon or
salvo, single bomb or stick and so on. The WAMS panel will also confirm to the
143
 Aircraft Management Systems

aa a a aN
/ \
~ Forward \
NN Pilot weapon aiming o
mode selector
(WAMS) panel

Throttle COCKPIT
NN eee

(i)

G59
O
oo
(

7 \
N
D
we
cee
Se
aaa
a |
[
camo
jettison
(Guarded) [LL
| [
I
Cut CU2 = L
|
Master
armament
selector
switch
Stores Safety
management break
computer (Wheel well)

Stores
management
bus

Weapon station
endcoder/
decoder

Ejector
release
unit
O’Board pylon I’ Board pylon |’ Board pylon O’Board pylon

+ ——- Left wing ——————» Centre

+#——— Right wing————_>»
line

Gun
Encoder/
electronics
Decoder
unit
Pylon
G,
J
Gun

Fig. 6.24 Notional stores

management system
architecture (SMS)

144
 Sto res management systems

pilot that the selections made are valid for the weapons fit pertaining and that the
correct fusing or arming actions have been made. At the top of the control stick
and throttle the pilot will have a number of switches which enable key selections
to be made without recourse to the WAMS panel. These controls permit the pilot
to fly with hands-on-throttle-and-stick and are referred to as HOTAS controls.
The principle behind HOTAS is the simple maxim that in combat the pilot cannot
afford to keep scanning instruments and feeling for switches inside the cockpit,
nor can he afford to take his hands off either throttle or stick. Figure 6.25 shows
the HOTAS controls for the Hawk 200 aircraft®? which are typical though not
specifically related to this notional system. The purpose of the HOTAS controls
shown in the figure is in each case self-explanatory (see also Fig. 4.14).

Fig. 6.25 British Aerospace Stick

4-way trim
Hawk HOTAS Air-to-surface select
Air-to-air select
controls Flight Missile bombs/rockets
International Ceguns gun
spare spare
Press to transmit
(PTT)
Weapon Missile reject
release trigger
Weapon
selection reset

Spare

Forward

Throttle Engine relight

Fix button button
Combat flap
Airbrake switch select button
PTT button
Slew control

Counter-measures
switch
Stadiametric range
control
———p>
Forward

Also in the cockpit the pilot will have a Master Armament Selector Swith (MASS)
which is effectively a master on/off switch which is used to power-up and arm the
system. Without the selection of the MASS the system is effectively inert and for
safety reasons the MASS is only selected immediately prior to combat or when
entering a firing range. In series with the MASS is a safety break — often located
in an undercarriage bay — which is the last safety device to be removed on the
ground. This is usually done by the groundcrew immediately prior to the pilot
taxying for take-off. The safety break is a further safety feature intended to give
additional protection on the ground while the aircraft is being armed. Finally, the
pilot has an Emergency Jettison (E/J) switch which is guarded to prevent inad-
vertent selection. This ‘switch when operated will apply power to the Ejector
145
 Aircraft Management Systems

Release Units (ERUs), small explosive devices which ignite and throw the weapon
launchers, stores and fuel tanks clear of the aircraft. This feature is intended to
‘clear wings’ of external stores if the aircraft encounters an emergency. The E/J
line circumvents all weapon release mechanisms. Inadvertent operation of E/J on
the ground is prevented by the fitting of safety pins which prevent the ERUs from
being fired. The safety pins are removed immediately prior to a sortie. For safety
during servicing operations the ERUs are electrically disconnected.
The system shown is assumed to have a dual channel digital SMS. The dual
computers interface to the WAMS panel, weapon station encoder/decoders and
gun electronic unit by means of a dedicated data bus. At the pylon or weapon
station, information between the computers and stores is converted from digital to
discrete or analogue signals depending upon the requirements of the store. There-
fore the pilot selections made on the WAMS panel are validated by the
computer(s) and signalled to the pilot as valid or otherwise. Weapon station and
weapon selections are sent to the encoder/decoders or GEU as appropriate.
Fig. 6.26 BAe Hawk weapon
Weapon status information is fed back to the computer(s) and therefore to the
options Flight pilot. A typical example of the weapons/stores options available on the Hawk 200
International is shown in Fig. 6.26.°

4 2:7 in (68 mm) rocket launchers

2 Built-in 25 mm guns @ with 18 rockets each
4 3-2 in (81 mm) rocket launchers
1 ECM pod on centreline @ with 12 rockets each
1 Reconnaissance pod on g9 4 3-9 in (100 mm) rocket launchers
centreline with 4 rockets each

5 1,000 Ib (450 kg) bombs 36 80 Ib (36 kg) runway

freefall or retarded x
x denial bombs

9 250 Ib (112 kg) bombs WER 36 80 Ib (86 kg) tactical

freefall or retarded Hi strike bombs

4 Air-to-air missiles
4 AGM-65 Maverick air-to-
a 600 Ib (272 kg) cluster
surface missiles
bombs
9 50 Imp gal (230 litre) 4 CBLS 100/200 carriers with 4
fire bombs practice bombs and 4 rockets each

External fuel tanks 3 Sea Eagle air-to-surface

2 190 Imp gal (860 litre) missiles
3 130 Imp gal (590 litre)
=) 9 |
The wide range of weapon options available for carriage can clearly cause
logistic and inter-operability problems, especially across a wide range of aircraft
and weapon options as typified by the NATO Air Forces. Attempts are being made
to improve inter-operability by means of standardising the weapon/pylon interface.
The standard concerned, MIL-STD-1750, attempts to standardise signal types and
formats for this interface, thereby enhancing US Tri-service and NATO Air Force
‘
 References

inter-operability. The standard also makes provision for future ‘smart’ weapons
which may require standard data bus and video bus interfaces with the aircraft.

REFERENCES
ih Gilson, C. FADEC for fighter engines, nteravia. 11/1986.
es Condom P. Using electronics to save fuel, The development of FADEC, Jnteravia.
8/1985.
ag Condom P. Flight management systems: wanted but only when they work, /nteravia.
5/1984.
4. Blackman A. L. Flight management computer systems, Aerospace. February 1984.
. Moir I., Seabridge A. G. Vol 13 No 7. Management of Utility Systems in the
Experimental Aircraft Programme, Aerospace.
. Gaines M., Combat-ready Hawk, Flight International. 20 June 1987.
 CHAPTER 7 NAVIGATION SYSTEM
SIMON J. K. WALKER MB A.

Mr Walker is an aviation consultant in a specialist company with offices in

Washington, London and Hong Kong.
Qualified as a commercial pilot he has worked for corporate flight departments
and airlines in UK and was a Regional Technical Sales Manager for British
Aerospace Civil Division. He followed this post with one as Marketing Manager
for the Sperry Flight Systems Group of Honeywell.
Mr Walker has an honours degree in Economics and a Masters Degree in
Business Administration. -

Until recently navigation and voice communication were entirely separate functions
for the crew. Navigation was carried out by a combination of pre-flight planning,
often with incomplete weather information, with the location of the aircraft during
its flight being predicted by ‘dead-reckoning’, a technique which is based upon
calculations of speed, course, time, wind drift effect and the previous known
position. Trans-ocean and transcontinental flights would rely upon more sophis-
ticated stellar navigation using sextants.
The rate of growth of airline operations, both in terms of the number of aircraft,
their much higher speed and the complexity of their flight planning has intro-
duced the vital element of coordination with a large group of ground-based ex-
perts, such as air traffic controllers who will assist the crew as well as taking vital
decisions which affect the safety of the aeroplane.

RADIO WAVE PROPAGATION

This subject is dealt with in some detail in Chapter Eight so it is sufficient to say
here that, in general, navigational systems are based upon classic radio theory with
the curve depicting the movement of transmitted energy having two basic charac-
teristics — amplitude, the range of fluctuation from the mid-point to the extreme
point of the wave, and wavelength which is the measure of the linear distance of
a wave cycle. The frequency is, of course, measured by counting the number of
cycles completed in an appropriate timespan, usually one second. The character-
istics of radio wave propagation vary according to the degree of resistance to the
energy. ‘The earth can be considered to be the greatest resistor, with the strength
of the radiated energy being attenuated in proportion to the distance travelled.
As radio waves per unit of time involve extremely high numbers, radio frequen-
cies are usually referred to in multiples of kiloHertz (kHz), which equates to a
thousand cycles per second, or megaHertz (MHz), which equals 1000 kHz.
Radio waves are produced by sending a high frequency alternating current
148
 Navigation equipment

through a conductor — the aerial — which radiates a wave with the same frequency
as the current that generated it.
Radio frequencies are classified in groups of ‘bands’ because of the different
characteristics which particular frequency levels display. The wave bands and their
corresponding frequencies are listed below:

Band Frequency range

Very low (VLF) below 30 kHz
Low (LF) 30-300 kHz
Medium (MF) 300-3000 kHz
High (HF) 3000 kHz-30 MHz
Very high (VHF) 30-300 MHz
Ultra high (UHF) 300 MHz-—3000 MHz (3 GHz)

These characteristics have a profound effect on the design and use of navi-
gation equipment, imposing limitations on specific uses.
Low frequency waves are radiated in all directions, and comprise both a ground
wave element that dissipates outwards from the transmitter, and a sky wave that
is reflected back in the ionosphere. These latter signals can be received at varying
distances from the source of the transmission depending on physical effects as well
as environmental conditions.
High frequency radio waves reflect back and forth between the ground and the
ionosphere several times. This effect means that they can be used over consider-
able distances, albeit with the characteristic of a continual background noise. HF
radio is traditionally used for voice communication in parts of the world where
ground stations are not feasible, such as over oceans and deserts. In addition, they
are a crucial element in the present level of ACARS technology (see Chapter
Eight).
The VHF and UHF bands do not normally display any reflection from the
ionosphere, and hence are only useful in what are termed ‘line-of-sight’ condi-
tions. Under these conditions, the height of the transmitter and the receiver play
a crucial role in determining useful distance. Various formulae exist to estimate
the effective range of a transmitter based on the sum of the aircraft and transmitter
station elevations above ground. Frequencies in these two bands are used for both
communication and navigation.

NAVIGATION EQUIPMENT

To transmit and receive electronic information that allows for accurate navigation,
the following essential equipment is necessary:
(a) a method of determining the characteristics of the generated signal;
(b) a transmitter with associated aerials to generate and transmit the radio wave;
(c) aircraft receiver units and aerials to intercept, select and interpret the signals
received; é
(d) suitable visual displays for the pilct to make appropriate assessments of the
signals received.
The most common method of short-medium range navigation in use today relies
on VHF signals being received on the aircraft, and displayed on a suitable medium.
In addition, there are a number of long-range techniques employed, using inertial
and hyperbolic systems. These are covered in the appropriate sections of this
chapter. ;
149
 Navigation Systems

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

The complexity of modern aviation, caused by the volume of users in a finite

amount of air space, has created the requirement for an ever-expanding and
sophisticated Air Traffic Control service. Navigation systems can thus be
described as having two complementary functions: accurate navigation of aircraft
from departure to arrival airport; and secondly the means to define and follow
specific tracks in space in order to comply safely with the requirements of the
control system.
Air traffic control can be split up into a number of segments. These include:
local airport Tower control; Approach control; and en-route Airways control. Each
has a predefined function to ensure adequate separation, terrain clearance guid-
ance and smooth flow of aircraft within its jurisdiction.
Controlled airspace is divided into two main categories: Control Zones and
Control Areas. The first extends from ground level at an airport to a particular
height, typically 3000 feet. The control area covers the remainder of the airspace
under positive control, including the airways network. A transition level separates
the two.
The safe and expeditious use of controlled airspace relies on the accurate
display and use of navigational data. The most vivid example of this is in Terminal
Control Areas, where complex arrival and departure paths are created (see Fig.
7.1). These standard instrument departures (SIDs) and standard terminal area
arrival routeings (STARs) are defined for each runway and conceivable
arrival/departure route at major airfields. They will normally involve a sequence
of radials and distances to fly, utilising a range of navigation aids that have been
preselected prior to take-off or arrival.
The intricate pattern of a modern air traffic control system is displayed on radio
navigation charts produced and updated, on a weekly basis, by a number of firms.
The two that meet the world-wide needs of the professional pilot are Jeppesen
and Aerad.

NAVIGATION DISPLAYS

A more detailed description of the form of navigation displays has been given in
an earlier chapter. The purpose of this section is to set out those characteristics
appropriate to an understanding of methods of navigation.
The four displays that will be briefly described include one relatively old
display, plus three modern ones. The first is the relative bearing indicator (RBI),
the modern displays are the radio magnetic indicator (RMI), the horizontal situ-
ation indicator (HSI), and displays fed by the flight management system (FMS).
Cockpit information for the vertical element of an instrument landing system is
covered in the following section on point source aids.
The relative bearing indicator was one of the earliest displays of navigational
information, providing a bearing (radial) to the navigational beacon, usually a non-
directional beacon (NDB). Although offering a dramatic improvement in terms of
positional accuracy, it still required considerable pilot interpretation for accuracy.
The ‘compass card’ was fixed, with ‘zero’ uppermost. Needle indications
displayed variance from this zero indication. Pilots had to superimpose in their
minds the display message from the RBI upon the compass situated elsewhere in
the cockpit.
Variations from the zeroed position indicated one of two possibilities: first, the

150
-
 Navigation displays
Fig. 7.1 Controllers at the iii
London Air Traffic
Control Centre
(LATCC) at West
Drayton, Middlesex
use a standard 23
inch plan position
indicator (PPI) to
monitor traffic in
their sectors Crvil
Aviation Authority

aircraft was not on the desired radial to or from the beacon; second there was
a planned correction for wind effect such that the aircraft nose was not pointing
at the beacon, although it was physically tracking along the desired radial.
One result of this latter effect was that, if the pilot kept the needle on the zero
position, the aircraft would eventually approach the beacon heading into wind,
albeit having flown tighter and tighter curves towards that position!
The correction factors required to compensate for wind effects had to be
mentally reversed once the aircraft had passed over the beacon and the needle
was pointing behind the aircraft. The potential for inaccurately assessing the
information displayed led to the development of the more ‘user friendly’ radio
magnetic indicator (RMI).
As discussed above, the relative bearing indicator had a number of limitations,

151
 Navigation Systems

particularly under conditions of high pilot workload. To correct many of these

deficiencies, the RMI was developed.
This instrument had a rotating compass card, on which were superimposed two
bearing needles, one double-barred, one single-barred. ‘This resulted in a contin-
uous readout of bearing to or from the navigation station to which it was tuned.
The compass card was actuated by the aircraft’s compass system, causing rotation
of the card as the aircraft turned.
The bearing pointers displayed magnetic bearings to NDB or VOR stations.
Early examples of the RMI imposed limits on the switching capability of the instru-
ment, so that the No. 1 indicator, the double-barred one, pointed to VOR stations,
Fig. 7.2 Radio
while the No. 2 pointer was used for NDB stations. Later models allow full
direction/distance/
magnetic indicator switching between the needles, so that there can be any combination of twin or
(RDDMI) Honeywell single VOR or ADF displays.

Distance Distance
flags Radio direction
pointer flag

Heading Heading flag

Radio direction
pointer flag

Radio direction
pointers

; Pointer function Pointer function

Radio dir ection annunciation annunciation
pointer function
selectors

Figure 7.2 shows a typical display format, incorporating distance-measuring

information on the instrument. This type of instrument is referred to as an
RDDMI to indicate this additional feature.
Despite the introduction of EFIS the RDDMI remains on most flight decks as
a stand-by instrument, the use of which is explained later in the chapter.
The horizontal situation indicator (HSI) is one of two primary instruments on
the flight deck, the other being the attitude and direction indicator — ADI. In many
modern aircraft, the electro-mechanical displays have been replaced by electronic
ones for greater reliability and capability with lower weight.
Figure 7.3 shows the functions of another such electronic instrument. Many
of the displays shown are not permanently activated — an advantage of electronic
switching. They include the aircraft symbol which provides the visual reference
of aircraft position relative to a selected course or heading. The course deviation
indicator (CDI), with associated course select pointer and readouts, represents
the centreline of the selected navigation input. A pictorial representation of the

152 ‘
 Point source aids

Fig. 7.3 Horizontal situation Course/desired Drift Heading Heading Fore Bearing
indicator track display angle source select lubber pointers
(HSI) Honeywell bug . annunciator bug line VA Heading

dial Navigation
Compass sync. source
annunciator -™ annunciator
CRS. \ omPl KA
Course He WY —_—— Distance
> 1

select display
pointer
Toon ~~DME hold
annunciator Vertical
Ww int ~__ navigation,
aypoin Ve ™~glide slope,
annunciator or elevation
erat deviation
Bearing pour
pointer VEG) one
~
source SS annunciator
annunciator
Ground speed
Heading Aircraft isp te
select symbol gishiay Nie
display AFT — Reciprocal ‘Course or
Note: lubber course azimuth
Time-to-go and elapsed time is also line pointer deviation bar
displayed at this location

aircraft shows deviation from the selected course, and provides a command indi-
cation to restore the aircraft to the centreline.
Although referred to as a horizontal situation indicator, there are some vertical
functions possible in the form of part-time displays, activated for specific purposes.
These include a secondary indication of glideslope deviations as well as VNAV
(vertical navigation) functions for aircraft equipped with suitable navigation inter-
faces.

FLIGHT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (see Chapters Four and Six)

The navigation capabilities of flight management systems (FMS) via programmable

navigation databases are displayed on the ‘Map’ mode of an electronic flight
instrument system (EFIS). This may be displayed on the primary instruments on
either side of the cockpit, or, increasingly likely, on a specialised multi-function
display unit, mounted in the centre console. This MFD will act as the radar
display indicator, either solely for weather or as a combination weather and map
display.
Routeings between reporting points are displayed, fed either from navigation
beacons such as VORs or NDBs, or from waypoints ‘created’ by the navigational
database in a long-range navigation system.

POINT SOURCE AIDS

This section on navigation equipment covers those aids to navigation that can be
considered as being derived from a source, either on the ground or in the air. This
will thus cover radio beacons such as VOR stations and instrument landing
systems, where interpretation is required by an aircraft’s on-board receiver and
radio aids like distance-measuring equipment, where there is a two way flow of
/

153
 Navigation Systems

data and information between the ground and the air. Lastly, some consideration
will be given to the use of airborne radar for positional navigation.
For many years the primary source of navigational information was a group of
low frequency devices which have now been completely superseded by the devel-
opment of automatic direction finding (ADF) stations, now referred to as non-
directional beacons (NDB). As will be explained later, these suffered from a number
of problems, not least their tendency to be unreliable in storm activity, often the
very time when they were most needed. Very high frequency devices in the aircraft
followed, with very high frequency omni range (VOR), distance-measuring equip-
ment (DME) and instrument landing systems (ILS) all contributing to greater
precision and accuracy in navigation.
Future developments are concentrated upon improving these precision levels,
without the inherent shortcomings of the current types. The most advanced of
these is the microwave landing system (MLS), in use in the United States as a
privately owned navigational aid for particular aircraft, as well as under active trial
at many European airports (see p. 159). Radar technology has also improved
dramatically as a result of developments in the computer industry. The results are
seen in the increasing use of colour tubes, with added benefits in detecting
turbulence and lightning areas.
The connecting link between all of the navigational aids considered in this
section is the cockpit display for the pilot. This may indicate a deviation from the
desired course, a numerical readout of distance and speed or a pictorial display
of ground mapping returns. Some form of response from the ground is also relied
upon, either in the form of an RF signal or response, or variations in radar signal
strength.
Pilot control of the tuning of these devices has usually been accomplished by
individual radios being self-contained, with separate tuning controls, bearing
selectors and display indicators for each. Recent developments are reducing this
level of independence, at least on the flight deck. Electronic flight displays can
be switched between functions at the request of the pilot; tuning of radio stations
can now be performed via the keyboard of flight management systems; radio
magnetic indicators (RMI) are now common in many aircraft, with switching
between ADF and VOR radios. One of the more interesting improvements in
recent years has been the development of the Honeywell Primus II range of radios,
whereby the tuning and selection of all navigational and communication equipment
is performed via a radio management unit (RMU) that also provides a large memory
capacity for common frequencies; all in a package barely an eighth of the size of
the standard airline configuration.

Very high frequency omni- The VOR transmitter/receiver system is the primary source of navigational guid-
range (VOR) ance over populous land masses. As discussed earlier, by utilising the VHF radio
wave band, certain benefits accrue, such as reduced interference, particularly
static atmospheric interference; there are, of course, line-of-sight range limitations.
Effective, usable range of a VOR station is thus between 40 and 300 miles,
depending on the aircraft (receiver) altitude.
The current ARINC characteristic for VOR receivers is ARINC 711, devel-
oped over several years from 1978. As described in this characteristic, the function
of the receiver is to receive, process and output digital signals of bearing in a
frequency band from 108.00 to 117.95 MHz. (Additional functions also cater for
the receiving of marker beacon signals on 75 MHz.) The receiver frequencies are
used for specific functions, with relatively low powered (and hence reduced range)
154 ‘
 Point source aids

terminal VORs operating in the range 108.00 to 112.00, and airways transmissions
between 112.00 and 117.95 MHz.
The principle of operation of VOR is based on the concept of phase differences
between two alternating voltages. Detecting the difference permits the determi-
nation of positional guidance in azimuth. The two navigation signals generated
by the transmitter station are called the Reference signal and the Variable signal.
The first of these has a constant phase when received at any point around the
transmitter station, while the second varies according to the receiver position rela-
tive to the in-phase condition at Magnetic North.
The signal from the VOR transmitter is rotated at 1800 revolutions per minute,
which allows for accurate phase comparisons to determine change in azimuthal
bearing, relative to the in-phase signal. The information received as a result of
the phase comparison is then displayed as an indication of bearing to and from
the transmitter station.
VOR displays are presented in a variety of ways. The earliest type was referred
to as a course deviation indicator (CDI), which presented a visual indication of
whether an aircraft was established on a pre-selected radial to or from the station.
The horizontal situation indicator (HSI) shows such an indication (Fig. 7.3). The
deviation displayed is known as a command indication because in order to regain
the centreline of the selected radial, the aircraft must be flown towards the course
deviation bar.
The radio direction distance magnetic indicator RDDMI (Fig. 7.2) shows a
constant display of the radial to or from the transmitter station. The pilot may
observe deviations from the desired radial in accordance with movement of the
pointer.
Power output of the transmitter varies as a result of VOR classification.
Terminal VORs, with their short useful range, transmit with a power output of
approximately 50 watts, while en-route transmitters have an output of 200 watts.
Identification of the tuned station is carried out via a three letter morse code
signal transmitted continuously. Failure of the station transmitter, or too weak a
signal, is indicated to the pilot via failure flags, or a lack of To/From indication.

Distance-measuring Distance-measuring equipment has come a long way from the early examples. It
equipment (DME) is now an integral part of accurate navigational guidance, whether linked toa VOR
facility to provide range and bearing, or by frequency scanning of a number of
DME stations to provide inputs to an inertial navigation system.
The present ARINC characteristic is 709, the digital update of the earlier
characteristic ARINC 568. As with all ARINC characteristics, this is primarily
designed for airline transport use, with the reliability and performance require-
ments inherent in that market.
Distance-measuring equipment accurately measures slant range from an airborne
transmitter/receiver to the ground station. (Slant range incorporates aircraft alti-
tude as well as ground distance.) This measure is not precisely what is required
by the crew, but provides an acceptable compromise in terms of reliability and
complexity by removing the need for additional inputs from a radar or altimeter
source. In practice, the difference between slant range and ground distance is
negligible if the aircraft is one or more miles from the ground station for each
thousand feet of aircraft altitude.
DME works on the basis of two sets of transmission and receiving signals, one
from the aircraft, the other from the ground station. Initially, the aircraft transmits
an interrogation signal, similar to that of a transponder system (see Chapter Nine).
155
 Navigation Systems

The reception and subsequent transmission of an answering set of radio signals

from the ground equipment allows for a measurement of elapsed time between
transmission and reception of the signals at the aircraft, which is then converted
into distance. The use of pairs of radio pulses removes the problem of ambiguity
between aircraft.
The distance indicator provides a digital readout in nautical miles. This is
shown embodied in the RDDMI (Fig. 7.2). Integration of DME readings with
those of other navigation aids is increasingly common, although separate displays
remain in production, usually for general aviation aircraft, as an ‘add-on’ to the
original specification.
Future developments of the DME system will be the outcome of improved tech-
nology, particularly at the ground stations. This will result in greater use of the
facility in high accuracy, all-weather landing requirements. The power of aircraft
computers in particular, allows for rapid scanning of frequencies to ensure the
integrity of display information.
Additional use of DME data is covered in the section on TACAN and area
navigation.

TACAN TACAN is now used as a civilian derivation of a military standard navigation

system. Developed in the 1960s, the standard TACtical Air Navigation signal was
designed to provide range and bearing guidance. The civilian development is now
commonly referred to as the VORTAC system, based on VOR, TACAN and DME
inputs to a navigation computer.
The TACAN system is based upon 252 different frequencies, 126 ‘X’ and 126
‘Y’ channels, with interrogation frequencies ranging from 1025 MHz to 1150
MHz, and ground reply frequencies between 962 MHz and 1024 MHz, and 1151
MHz and 1213 MHz for channel X. Channel Y ground reply frequencies are from
1025 MHz to 1150 MHz. Pulse spacing varies between 12 microseconds for
interrogation frequencies to 24-30 microseconds for ground reply.
By 1970, civilian approval had been granted by the Federal Aviation Admin-
istration to use short range rho-theta (bearing-distance) navigation based on the
military standard. The ground facilities were based on a mixture of VOR, TACAN
and DME stations, mostly co-located.
The most practical development of the merging of two guidance systems was in
the field of area navigation, RNav. This allowed the on-board navigation computer
to offset data received from the ground stations in order to create an imaginary
‘waypoint’ in space, set up by the pilot. This made possible navigational guidance
to a point where no ground stations existed, through advanced computer tech-
nology, at a price and weight acceptable to operators.
A bearing and distance was established from a TACAN or VOR/DME station
and the rho-theta algorithms incorporated in the RNav system calculated appro-
priate bearings and distance to the established waypoint, presenting them on a
cockpit display precisely as if the aircraft was flying to a ground station.
With operational experience built up over several years, specific RNav routes
have been established, particularly in the United States, albeit mainly for general
aviation pilots.

Automatic direction finding Low frequency radio beacons were among the first aids to navigation. These
(ADF) facilities are referred to as non-directional beacons (NDBs) as they transmit a
radio signal in every direction around the transmitter. Aircraft on-board equipment
provides the guidance computations and display.
156
 Point source aids

The present ARINC characteristic, 712, defines an ADF system as being

capable of receiving and processing signals from the non-directional beacon within
the frequency range 190 kHz to 1750 kHz. This is an extension from the early
devices, which were restricted to 415 kHz. The new standard is based on digital
techniques which allow for more accurate and more stable information being
relayed to the pilot.
The principle of ADF receiver operation is based on the calculation of bearing
from the aircraft to the transmitting station via two antennas, a sense antenna and
a loop antenna. ARINC 712 defines the two antennas as being combined in the
same unit. The vertical, sense antenna receives the signals from all directions
with equal efficiency. The directional antenna extracts a portion of this energy via the
loop that it is shaped into. Induced voltages in the sides of the loop and the
strength of signal received are processed to determine relative bearing. The sense
antenna is also utilised to determine coarse distinctions as to whether the station
is ahead or behind, or to left or right of the aircraft.
Cockpit displays for ADF facilities fall into two main types. The first is the
relative bearing indicator (RBI); the second the radio magnetic indicator (RMI).
Both of these types of display were covered earlier in the chapter, with the varying
operational benefits of each.
Voice transmission on this frequency band is often provided, subject to there
being no interference with the navigation function for which the equipment was
designed. The BBC transmitter near Birmingham, transmitting on 200 kHz is one
of the best examples of this phenomenon. While providing radio programmes to
people on the ground, it simultaneously provides high quality navigational guid-
ance to pilots as a result of its very high power output.
The low level of quality of many stations, however, results in additional facilities
being required to take advantage of any possibility of improving reception. The
two devices associated with the receiver unit in the cockpit are a loop switch,
which allows the rotation of the loop left and right to tune in more accurately to weak
stations, and a beat frequency oscillator (BFO) which adds a signal tone to the
incoming signal to produce a continuous tone of improved strength.
Automatic direction finding, by its very nature, is liable to identify the source
of the strongest signal in the area. As a result, cockpit displays are often disrupted
by the tendency to point towards thunderstorm activity, negating the navigational
benefits of the device. Modern units are far less susceptible to these problems as
a result of the digital tuning now available.
Special examples of NDBs exist as marker beacons on the approach to instru-
ment runways, and, in the United States, as airway marker beacons (Z markers).
These provide no guidance to the crew, other than an indication of passing over
the appropriate beacon. Typical cockpit displays are lights of various colours and
an aural tone if the receiver is switched to identify it.

Instrument landing system Two main types of instrument landing system are in use today: the traditional ILS,
(ILS/MLS) utilising a VHF localiser beam and a UHF glideslope beam (Fig. 7.4); and the
relatively modern microwave landing system (MLS). This section will concentrate
on the former, with some comment on what the latter offers for the future.
An instrument landing system comprises two separate components for the accu-
rate guidance of an aircraft towards the touchdown point of a designated runway.
The first of these, the VHF localiser beam is conceptually identical with a tradi-
tional VOR radial as described earlier, with one important distinction — the beam
is set up along the approach path to the runway, and once identified and being
157
 Navigation Systems

Fig. 7.4 Principles of ILS localiser aerial

instrument landing | Localiser signal. LEFT
system (ILS) Localiser signal. RIGHT ca
Crvil Aviation
Authority
ILS
glideslope
aerial
Glide path
Middle marker
1 nautical mile
(Vertical
radio beacons)
Outer marker
4 nautical miles

Extended runway centre line

(ground level) ~

flown, is not affected by the bearing indication around the instrument. The
deviation indication is always relative to the centreline of the runway, as the
‘radial’ is fixed.
The second beam, tuned electronically via a single tuning mechanism, is a VHF
beam that provides descent slope indication, and again, is fixed at a predetermined
slope angle. Typically this is 3 degrees, although certain approach paths are
greater than this. The approach to the London City Airport (STOLport) for
example is set at 73 degrees.
The localiser signal is defined as a radiated field pattern with two modulation
frequencies, one left and the other right of the extended centreline. On-course
signals are thus identified by signals of equal strength between the two modulated
sides.
The glideslope is constructed in a similar way, with different modulated
frequencies to indicate position above or below the predetermined slope.
Frequency range for ILS equipment is from 108 MHz to 112 MHz for the
localiser signal, and approximately three times those figures for the UHF glide-
slope signal.
Cockpit displays vary considerably. Early designs for example, the Sperry Zero
Reader, had a dedicated instrument with two needles that crossed in the middle
of the instrument to indicate that the aircraft was on the centreline of each radiated
signal. With the needles attached at single points at the top and left-hand of the
display device, there was some possibility for confusion at critical stages of the
flight.
A second type of display utilised separate media, although on the same instru-
ment (Fig. 7.5). Here, the course deviation indication was similar to the VOR
generated display, whilst the glideslope deviation was shown as a vertical scale
to one side of the attitude and direction indicator (ADI).
-

158
 Point source aids

Fig. 7.5 Attitude and Attitude Roll

direction indicator source attitude Roll
(ADI) Honeywell annunciator — pointer |

Flight
director
mode
4+ annunciators
Attitude Aircraft
sphere ———_}—_+_ : ap symbol
Pitch and roll Glide slope, VNAV,
command or elevation
deviation pointer
Fast/slow Rising
pointer runway

Air; data Marker

eee
command
display Radio
altitude
Decision display
height
display Expanded Inclinometer
localizer
or azimuth
pointer

An important development in this critical navigation area was the provision of

command indications that could take account of the proximity of the transmission
signal, and hence distance from the touch-down point. This would allow for
appropriate corrective measures to be taken, as opposed to larger than necessary
measures that would require further, opposite correction as the centrelines were
continually passed through.
ILS facilities are categorised by the degree of accuracy that they are capable
of generating. (This has to be matched by aircraft receiver sensitivity.) These
categories are designated Cat I, Cat II, Cat IIa, IIIb, IIc, depending on the
accuracy attainable. In practical terms they define the minimum height and visual
range to which a crew may descend without sight of the runway. Full blind land-
ings were pioneered by the Royal Aircraft Establishment Blind Landing Experi-
mental Unit, BLEU, and Smiths Industries, in association with Hawker Siddeley
and British European Airways using, for the world’s first blind landings, the early
Trident aircraft. Such was the success of this work that it is now commonplace
for the autopilots of most modern jet airliners to be capable of landing the aircraft
having flown a flawless approach down an instrument landing slope to the touch-
down point.
The future of runway approach guidance undoubtedly lies with microwave
landing systems which provide improved capabilities in terms of reduced suscep-
tibility to interference from buildings and hills, improved facilities for multi-aircraft
approaches, even with a curved, noise abatement profile and will also provide
additional guidance during overshoots.
At present, the only operational MLS stations are privately owned in the United
States in mountainous areas such as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Oper-
ational trials are being conducted on a Boeing 757 of British Airways at London
Heathrow, monitored by the Civil Aviation Authority, a body that is contributing
to the adoption of European and world-wide standards of commonality.

159
 Radar (see also Chapter The last area to be covered in this section concerns the use of radar for navigation
Nine) purposes. Although not strictly a point source aid, as mentioned in the introduc-
tion, there are areas where the effects are similar.
['wo main uses can be made of radar technology for navigation. The first
concerns an airport-based system for approach guidance; the second, the use of
the ground mapping facility that is becoming increasingly common on airborne
radar sets.
[he use of air traffic controller guided approaches by airliners has been a
feature of airports for several decades. The method by which it is achieved has
barely changed, although microprocessor technology has improved the reliability
and display for the radar controller. Typical displays require two separate radar
tubes to cover azimuth and vertical aspects of an aircraft approach (Fig. 7.6).
Deviations from the desired approach path are conveyed to the pilot via voice
transmission on the VHF radio. Military exigency allows for approaches to very
low minima, while normal civilian approaches display a greater conservatism, with
lateral distances of half a mile being common for the cessation of guidance. These
approaches are of value in areas where the ground returns can distort normal ILS
signals, or where cost is an important consideration, particularly if the normal
weather patterns do not justify a full ILS installation.
Fig. 7.6 Cossor Compass
9000 system at The second use of radar for navigational purposes concerns on-board weather
Gatwick airport radar. With increasing frequency, these devices have a facility referred to as
Cossor ‘ground-mapping’. The returns from reflected signals are analysed electronically

160
 Hyperbolic and grid systems

and the different characteristics of cloud and ground are displayed appropriately.
One result of this is to accurately map coastlines, where the water/land difference
is acutely obvious. More than one major airline utilises this facility in order to
maintain an appropriate distance from land that it considers hostile to aircraft
overflights.

HYPERBOLIC AND GRID SYSTEMS

History and Principles of This section is devoted to those navigation systems that utilise a number of earth
operation or space stations to provide a continuous readout of position for aircraft. The
systems that will be covered are Loran C, Omega, and Global Positioning System.
The latter relies on satellite coverage, and at the time of publication, is yet to be
formally commissioned with the full number of satellites.
The ground based hyperbolic systems have been in general aviation use since
the 1950s, with the development of Loran and the Decca Navigator. Early methods
of judging the position of an object had been developed from the First World War,
with ranges for artillery being gauged from the differences in arrival times of the
sound of gunfire at a variety of microphone listening points.
A number of variations on the basic theme of phase differences for the creation
of lines of position evolved between those early days and the development of
hyperbolic systems that developed at much the same time in the United States and
Great Britain in the early 1940s. These developments were to utilise pulse meas-
urements, and relied on the invention of radar technology for their advancement.
Hyperbolic systems differ from the more common range and bearing techniques
discussed in the previous section as they produce lines of position in a hyperbolic
form rather than the circles and radials approach of DME and VOR (Fig. 7.7).
The transmission of radio signals is confined to the non-aircraft stations, removing
the possibility of saturating the frequencies that can occur in two-way transmission.
The method used to create the hyperbolic lines of position is to establish a
group of master and slave stations suitably distant from each other. Considering
a two Station pairing, a single pulse issued simultaneously will travel in concentric
rings from each station, each with a measurable time interval at each ‘ring’. The
relative position of a device capable of measuring the time elapsed since trans-

BAC
SEAR
Fig. 7.7 Hyperbolic grid M — Master station
pattern S - Slave station

SUN
EWS

161
 Navigation Systems

mission will be located along a hyperbola located on possible points that can be
considered as lines of constant time difference. Three possible straight lines exist:
the first is when a measuring device is exactly on the line whereby the time
difference between the two pulses is identical; the second and third where the
device lies on the extensions behind each station but is on the imaginary line
drawn between the two.
The description above implies that a single pulse is used as a measure of time
difference. In practice, of course, there is a steady stream of such pulses synchron-
ised between the stations. An alternative philosophy relies on the transmission of
a synchronised continuous wave (CW), with measurement relying on variations in
phase detected at a common frequency.
In the latter case, the concentric circles created are spaced at intervals of one
wavelength. The pulse method utilises time differences. Each system has properties
that render it most suitable for particular applications; Loran C, discussed in
greater detail later, uses both techniques. The time variation element is used to
derive an unambiguous position line, with the CW technique being used to
generate greater accuracy along that line.
The discussion so far has referred to a pair of stations, one master and one
slave. In reality, it is necessary to obtain an intersection of position lines in order
to determine actual position of the receiver station. This is done by using a second
pair of stations. Often, the master station is common to the two pairs, enabling
position to be determined from a minimum of three stations, a master and two
synchronised slaves.
The physical display of the resulting lattice pattern depends on the use for
which the hyperbolic system is intended. Relatively slow moving craft such as ships
will have charts drawn with the lattice superimposed; aircraft on the other hand
rely on computational techniques to drive a more suitable display.
As late as the early 1970s, there was a general belief that hyperbolic systems
would form the basis of all long-range navigation as well as supplying the localiser
element of an Instrument Landing System. The development of inertial devices,
self-contained within the aircraft has amended that philosophy. However, the
development of satellite-based systems that can provide positional fixing for ground
based personnel as well as navigational capability for the crew represents a further
advance.

Loran C Loran C was a development of the work carried out in the 1940s by the United
States Air Force. It was a low frequency variant of the Loran A, or Standard
Loran, already in service, designed, ultimately to replace the older system, offering
benefits such as 24-hour service and improved range data over land.
The first ‘chain’ of stations came on stream in 1957, and by 1970 had expanded
to 30 stations, covering large areas in the Northern Hemisphere. These included
the North Atlantic, the eastern seaboard of the United States, areas of the Pacific,
and the central Mediterranean.
Loran C is a pulse-based system that utilises phase comparisons to fine-tune
measurements. Its low frequency and high power combine to provide excellent
accuracy levels, particularly over the sea, but also over land.
Loran C utilises a common master station for the two pairs of transmitters. This
allows for relatively simplified computer calculation, making airborne equipment
feasible. Each master can have up to four slave stations associated with it, each
potentially up to 1000 miles from the master. These distances are determined by
measurement of the accuracy of the groundwave generated from the stations.
162
,
 Hyperbolic and grid systems

However, especially at night, there are skywaves generated as well, and these
travel by a different path to the groundwave, taking longer to arrive and exhibiting
a degradation in pulse duration. Although groundwave measurement is more
accurate within its operational range, it is feasible to utilise the skywave at ranges,
occasionally up to 4000 miles, at night.
The accuracy of the Loran C system is very high at the points of greatest signal
strength and differentiation. Typical values are better than a tenth of a mile at
350 miles range from the master station reducing in accuracy to a fifth of a mile
at 750 miles range. It has been widely adopted in areas of traffic congestion and
has been particularly valuable for its high degree of accuracy achieved in heli-
copters operating to off-shore oil rigs, although the new generation of radar is
taking over this particular function.

Omega The range of techniques that evolved from hyperbolic principles led to the devel-
opment of the Omega system. This is based upon the continuous wave method
utilising phase comparison to determine lines of position. The very low frequency
band is used, specifically in the 10 to 14 kHz range.
The reasons for the choice of such a low frequency stemmed from the require-
ment for a low cost system. Operating in this wave band would allow very long
base lines between stations. This, in turn, implied a reduced number of stations
for global coverage. The total required reduces to eight with base lines of 5000
to 6000 miles between stations.
Other benefits from base lines as long as this include the ability of navigational
aids to utilise more than the minimum number of fixes for position identification.
This improves the accuracy of the resultant position.
Modern Omega systems are now available for business aircraft as well as
conventional large transport aeroplanes for which they were originally conceived.
This is a result of the considerable advances made in computer technology,
allowing fast processing of the transmitted information at a cost that is acceptable
to a growing group of users.
The sensors consist of a receiver processing unit RPU, and an antenna coupler
unit ACU. The first of these provides the interface with the aircraft’s flight
management system FMS to determine present position and speed. The second
unit receives the signals and converts them for processing by the RPU. A number
of antenna types is available, each with specific characteristics. This area was one
of the most difficult to develop in the early days of Omega design.
The positions of the eight transmitters are divided equally between the
Northern and Southern Hemispheres; the first four having been located in
Norway, Trinidad, Hawaii and on the east coast of the United States.

Global positioning system GPS is a satellite navigation system that will provide continuous worldwide
(GPS) coverage, once all the planned satellites are in space and operational. When fully
commissioned, 18 satellites will be required to provide the most accurate level of
positioning fixing so far developed.
Originally designated NavStar, the system was conceived in the mid-1970s to
provide highly accurate position and velocity information, primarily to military
users, on a continuous basis. The inherent benefits of the system have encouraged
civilian use to be explored as well, although as a result of military pressure, prob-
ably at a reduced level of accuracy.
GPS will comprise three distinct components: a ground based control segment
comprising a master station and four other monitors; the space segment comprising
163
 Navigation Systems

the 18 satellites; and the user segment installed in the vehicles utilising the system.
The control master station will be positioned in the continental United States, with
the four monitoring stations on islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The user segments will only receive data, and hence the signals can be utilised
by any number of users in the same area. The on-board computations will include
position in three dimensional space. (An interesting use of the GPS while in test
mode was to verify the height of several mountains, confirming Mount Everest as
the highest point on Earth.)
The accuracy of the civilian system has an inherent value approaching 20
metres, but it will be deliberately downgraded to approximately 100 metres in
operational use. The system is not affected by terrain or geographical interference,
and, as such can be utilised to a far greater extent than Earth-based systems.
A number of companies are intending to produce receivers for civil use, both
on aircraft and ships. The planned cost of the system should allow other uses for
it on land-based vehicles, particularly those used in harsh environments.
The method of operation is for an estimate of present aircraft position, speed
and time to be entered into the system automatically by the normal navigational
system. This will initiate a search for the satellites and a determination of their
tracks. From three of the satellites data is picked up by the GPS receiver, the
range of each being calculated by multiplying the time taken to receive the signal
by the speed of light. A fourth satellite is interrogated and its range established
to correct any error which may have arisen due to a time difference between the
atomic clock in the satellite and the crystal clock in the GPS. Speed is established
by measuring the Doppler shift from the frequency of the GPS signal.
Production receivers are planned to be five channel; three are required for
position determination, one for precise time, and a fifth to capture a new satellite
coming into view as one of the three used for position is disappearing.
Although 18 satellites are needed for global coverage of all functions, a further
three will be in position. It is anticipated that the full range of satellites will be
in orbit by 1991, several years late as a result of the Space Shuttle accident that
stopped satellite launch flights by this type of vehicle in 1986.

DOPPLER NAVIGATION

This section details Doppler sensors of aircraft speed and their use in self-
contained navigation systems. It is included in the section on grid systems as a link
between the specific navigators described above and the inertial systems.
The concept of Doppler navigation stems from the observation, in the last
century, of an effect caused by relative motion between a wave source and an
observer. This effect results in a difference between the transmitted and received
frequencies. A common example of this occurs with the passage of a high speed
train, when the frequency of the sound perceived by an observer on the platform
varies as it approaches and departs.
Doppler navigation requires the measurement of this frequency shift between
a transmitted signal and the subsequent reception of the same signal reflected back
from the Earth’s surface, be it terrain or water. If the transmission wavelength is
known, and the angle of depression of the transmitted beam, and both are constant,
then the detected Doppler shift is a direct measure of the aircraft’s speed (Beck
1971). :
The velocity vector is resolved into the three basic components, horizontal,
lateral and vertical. As a result it is possible to provide a combination of speed
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 Self-contained systems

and distance information, true height, angle of attack, wind velocity with climb and
track angles. These are presented in a manner suitable for crew interpretation as
well as providing direct interfaces to a flight control system and flight management
system for navigation.
The accuracy of the system depends on a number of factors, some mechanical
and some relating to the environmental conditions in which the aircraft is flying.
Antenna design is of crucial importance, as it is desirable to produce narrow beams
for accurate tracking of the reflected signal. Alignment of the antennas also plays
a crucial role in determining accuracy (cf. strapdown inertial platforms).
The largest area of inaccuracy lies in the relative reflectivity of the surface over
which the aircraft is flying. Land and water masses display different levels of
attenuation that distort the returning signal. A number of potential compensators
exist to reduce the level of this effect. First a measured factor can be installed
based on the probability of operating over land and sea. Second, a crew initiated
device is possible, operated as the terrain changes from land to water, or third,
an autocorrect system is possible, with additional expense and complication, by
using twin-, split- or switched beam antennas that recognise the variation in
reception characteristics and compensate accordingly. Lastly, the movement of
water droplets, either in the air or due to wave action over bodies of water causes
errors in measurement. These factors produce inaccuracy levels of between one
and two per cent in total position.
The development of Doppler navigation systems, still in active airline use in the
1980s, brought a number of significant benefits to airline operations. These
included a reduction in crew workload, and in some cases the reduction in crew
complement as navigation specialists were no longer needed and more accurate
navigation resulted from better information about winds. This had a consequential
effect in that fuel conservation policies became more realistic and grew in import-
ance as the price of fuel trebled in the early 1970s, when aircraft were growing
larger with the introduction of the wide-bodied types such as the Boeing 747.
A disadvantage of Doppler, at least for military applications, is that the trans-
mitted beams can be received by ground-based missile detection and tracking
systems.

SELF-CONTAINED SYSTEMS

Principles of Gyros/Flux Gyroscopic behaviour can be explained by the application of Newton’s Laws of
valves/Coupied compass Motion. By reason of rapid rotation, the axis of a spinning gyroscopic rotor mech-
anism maintains its direction in space.
A gyro is a mechanical system, based on a rotor, universally mounted, to give
three axes of freedom. The two fundamental properties, gyroscopic inertia and
precession, are utilised in gyro instruments to establish a reference in space
independently of the supporting body and to control the effects of the Earth’s
rotation, its own bearing friction and unbalance. This latter property can also be
referred to as gyroscopic drift, made up of mechanical drift, caused by physical
elements during manufacture and operation, and apparent drift, caused by the
Earth’s rotation.
Directional gyroscopes are maintained in their level operating position via
torque motors and tilt switches. However, they will, due to deficiencies in balance
and friction, drift in yaw. This tendency is controlled by a stabilisation process
accomplished by the use of a flux valve, sometimes known as a fluxgate, which helps
to slave the gyro to the Earth’s magnetic field.
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 Navigation Systems

Surrounding the Earth are magnetic lines of force which can be used to estab-
lish the azimuth reference of an aircraft. Mounted pendulously, the flux valve is
maintained parallel to the horizontal component of the Earth’s field.
Components of the valve include a sensing element, mounted in a damping fluid,
secondary coils, and an excitation coil. Output signals from the flux valve vary,
depending on the position of the secondary windings relative to magnetic North.
Sensing the direction of the lines of force of the Earth’s magnetic field results
in a transmission of this information, electrically, to a suitable heading device.
The valve is usually mounted in the wing tip where magnetic interference from
the aeroplane is at a minimum. Errors in data transmission can be induced from
a variety of sources. Examples include misalignment of the unit, permanent
magnetism in the aircraft and acceleration errors during prolonged turn
manoeuvres.
As the normal motions of aircraft in flight cause errors and fluctuations in
ordinary magnetic compasses, the addition of synchronised directional information
allowed the introduction of slaved compasses (such as the pioneering Sperry
Gyrosyn Compass, developed in 1946) giving extremely accurate and stable
magnetic heading information.

Inertial navigation The modern inertial navigation system is the only self-contained single source for
all navigation data. Once the device is supplied with initial position information,
it is capable of continuously updating extremely accurate displays of aircraft
position, ground speed, attitude and heading. It also provides guidance to aircraft
sub-systems such as the auto-pilot and flight instrumentation. Following a US
Department of Defense requirement, the first inertial navigation system was devel-
oped by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s, but not intro-
duced operationally until the early 1960s.
By applying the principles of Newton’s Laws it is possible to produce a device
that is capable of detecting the minute changes in acceleration and velocities that
occur. This forms the heart of an understanding of an inertial reference system
(IRS).
The basic measuring instrument in an inertial navigation system is the acceler-
ometer. Inertial accelerometers contain a pendulum that swings off its null position
when affected by an acceleration or deceleration. The extent of the swing is meas-
ured electrically by a suitable pick-off device.
Two accelerometers are mounted in the system, one to measure movement in a
North-South direction and the other to measure movement in an East-West
direction. An amplifier circuit converts the electrical signals into a current that
drives a torque motor that returns the pendulum to its null position.
The acceleration signal from the amplifier is also sent to an integrator, which
is a time multiplication device. The acceleration is in feet per second squared. In
the integration, this acceleration is multiplied by time, with a resultant velocity in
feet per second. A second integration, in which the input of feet per second is
multiplied by time, gives an answer in feet or in miles.
As the computer associated with the inertial system was given the original
position of the aircraft, in latitude and longitude units, and has now calculated
distance travelled in the two planes, it is a simple calculation for the digital
computer to continuously update the present position of the aircraft.
The simplified explanation given above implies that the accelerometers are hard
mounted in the aircraft. However, this may result in acceleration errors from a
number of sources. The most prevalent are errors that would be induced by
‘
166
 Self-contained systems

gravity. As the aircraft moves in attitude, for example pitch, the pendulum of the
accelerometer would tend to swing off its null position as a consequence of gravity.
This would induce a false signal as to distance travelled. In order to keep the
accelerometer level at all times, a gimballed device has been necessary. This is
commonly referred to as the ‘inertial platform’, usually known as a ‘single-axis
platform’. In reality, there are similar arrangements in all three axes — pitch, roll
and yaw.
A second source of error may occur as a result of Earth rotation. As the gyro-
stabilised platform tends to remain fixed in space, but the aircraft is operating
relative to the Earth, it is necessary to keep the accelerometers level with the Earth.
The apparent tilting of the Earth relative to a space reference is corrected by
forcing the platform to tilt in proportion to the Earth’s own rotation. The required
earth rate compensation is a function of latitude, as the compensation is being
applied to the horizontal component of the Earth rate felt by the gyros. At the
Equator, this value is 15.04 degrees per hour, reducing to zero at the Poles.

Strapdown systems Accelerometers have shown a high degree of reliability in service so little design
development work has been carried out upon them. The problems inherent upon
gimbal mounting of the gyro have, however, been investigated in depth and the
outcome has been the introduction of a principle which has achieved almost
universal acceptance — the strapdown system.
In a conventional platform type of INS the gyros, with 23-3 degrees of freedom,
are gimballed inside the inertial device. The spinning mass is thus isolated from
the airframe, and the output signals from it are displacement sensitive.
In a strapdown system, gimbals do not exist, therefore the spinning mass follows
the airframe, and the output signals are rate sensitive. The gyros and acceler-
ometers of the system are connected solidly to the aircraft through a chassis
arrangement, with the accelerometer’s axes aligned with the aircraft’s longitudinal,
lateral and vertical axes. The gyros are still mounted to detect aircraft yaw, pitch
and roll.
Strapdown differs from the gimballed system in the highly sophisticated micro-
processor which is used to measure the angular rates of displacement defined by
the three gyros and resolve the acceleration signals into Earth-related acceler-
ations, followed by a calculation of the horizontal and vertical navigation compo-
nents.
Additional compensations have to be performed to take account of the Earth’s
gravity, rotation and shape, exactly as in a gimballed system. However, these
calculations are now performed inside the microprocessor’s software.
There are a number of inherent benefits which accrue as a result of utilising
a strapdown configuration. These can be summarised as follows:
(a) the gimbals of a conventional system are replaced by a mathematical plat-
form;
(b) the measurement of rate data rather than displacement information has im-
portant effects on flight control systems;
(c) as a second order system, manoeuvre-induced errors are minimised;
(d) a variety of function extensions to the system is possible through the use of
computer technology.

It also displays improved simplicity, with fewer units, offers improved performance
and greater ease of maintenance.
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 Navigation Systems

AIR DATA ACQUISITION AND AIR DATA COMPUTERS

In aviation terminology, ‘air data’ refers to the measurements of atmospheric

conditions through which the aircraft is flying. Pressure and temperature are meas-
ured to provide vital data for the operating crew. Examples of the type of infor-
mation provided include: barometric altitude, vertical speed, speed relative to the
local speed of sound (Mach number), indicated airspeed, true air speed and a
range of temperatures, such as static air and total air temperature.
The requirements for improved acquisition of air data information have
increased in recent times as a result of the larger flight envelopes available to
modern jet aircraft and the proliferation of on-board systems such as auto-pilots
and long-range navigation units requiring accurate atmospheric data.
However simple, an air data system requires some form of computational capa-
bility in addition to the basic sensing and display functions. This is because only
the basic parameters of barometric pressure and temperature can be measured; all
other elements have to be calculated.
There are two types of pressure that need to be measured: static (atmospheric)
pressure and pitot pressure. The first measures the ‘weight’ of the atmosphere in
a static environment, undisturbed by the aircraft, but varying with changes in alti-
tude and general atmospheric conditions.
Pitot pressure measures impact pressure, caused by the passage of the aircraft
through the air. Pitot pressure is higher than static as a result of the ram effect
of aircraft motion. The differential between the two measurements is referred to
as dynamic pressure, and is sensed by connecting both pressure lines to the
sensors.
The practical application of this system requires a pitot tube to be aligned with
the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, and static ports attached to the outside skin
of it in an area of undisturbed airflow (see Fig. 5.7).
Temperature is measured in a similar way, with a suitable probe extending into
the airflow.
Computations are carried out in a variety of ways so that the raw data measured
by the systems can be converted into a more useful form. Examples include: static
pressure converted into aircraft altitude; a combination of airspeed and altitude
to obtain Mach number; a combination of airspeed, altitude and temperature to
obtain true air speed. In addition, error correction is possible, either via a manual
system, such as corrections in the aircraft’s Flight Manual, or through more
sophisticated computational processes in an air data computer (ADC).
The development of air data systems began with an elementary pneumatic system,
consisting of aneroid bellows, mechanically coupled to the display pointers. To
some extent, they are still used as back-up devices, despite inherent accuracy
problems.
The ADC has benefited from rapid advances in technology and now has
improved performance and reliability, lower power consumption, the capability of
performing vertical navigation calculations with reduced weight and increased
simplicity leading to shorter repair times and consequent reduction in cost of
ownership.
A digital air data computer offers a centralised source for all the air data infor-
mation required by the crew as well as the automatic flight control systems aboard.
Typically, two pressure sensors, one for static, one for pitot, plus a total air
temperature probe provide the basic inputs to the computer; controlled by the
central processing unit, these signals are converted, if necessary, from analogue

168
7
 Attitude heading reference system (AHRS)

to digital data. One feature that becomes feasible as a result of the computational
capabilities is the capability of compensation factors for calibration and temperature
to be built in via programmable read-only memory (PROM) chips, allowing
complete interchangeability between aircraft types.
One important error associated with air data systems results from disturbed air
flow around the static ports. This causes differences between the measured static
pressure and the true measurement. At low air speeds, the effect is minimal, but
with modern jet aircraft, it may be considerable, resulting in variations in altitude
and true air speed. Static source error correction (SSEC) is a function of Mach
number and it is possible, with the computational facilities of modern air data
computers, to make adequate error correction of those aberrations which are long-
term and measurable.
Developments in ADC technology now concentrate upon the sensor elements.
The most interesting changes are currently occurring on the Airbus A320, where
air data modules (ADMs) are positioned very close to the pressure sources. The
ADMs convert the pneumatic pressure measured into a linear ARINC 429 databus
format. This in turn is fed to the combined air data computer and inertial reference
unit (ADIRU) which converts the output into compatible formats for flight guid-
ance functions. The main benefit of these modules is the high level of simplicity
which will improve failure rates and reduce maintenance costs.
Lastly, the digital nature of the ADCs and associated data inputs make extensive
test and condition monitoring functions more readily available. This includes both
continuous health monitoring by the components as well as fault logging in the
non-volatile memory. Further discussion of these functions appears in Chapters
Two and Five.

ATTITUDE HEADING REFERENCE SYSTEM (AHRS)

It has already been seen that an attitude and heading reference system (AHRS),
being an inertial system, provides aircraft attitude, heading and flight dynamics
information for cockpit displays, flight controls, weather radar antenna platforms
and other aircraft systems and instruments.
The gyros are strapped down and a digital computer integrates the rate data
to obtain heading, pitch and roll information, while a flux valve and three acceler-
ometers provide the aircraft computers with the level of dynamic information
demanded by high-performance flight control systems.
Typically, three line replaceable units (LRUs) make up each AHRS installation:
the flux valve, the compensator/controller, and the attitude and heading reference
unit (AHRU). As previously stated, the flux valve detects the relative bearing of
the Earth’s magnetic field, and the compensator/controller provides the single
cycle error correction for the flux valve.
The AHRU is the major component of the system, and, in the
Honeywell—Sperry AHZ-600, is made up of four major sub-systems (Fig. 7.8).
The inertial measurement unit (IMU) senses the aircraft’s body dynamics. It
contains the rate gyros, accelerometers and support ciectronics. The central
processor unit (CPU) performs the numerical computations necessary to extract
the attitude and heading information. It contains the microprocessor, arithmetic
logic unit, programme memory and scratchpad memory. In addition, this unit
controls and monitors the operation of the entire system. The input/output (I/O)
Unit supervises the analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue conversions. The
flux valve is connected to the I/O unit through the compensator using the current
169
 Navigation Systems

Fig. 7.8 AHZ-600 simplified CTS ae Se eeeee |

block diagram
|
Honeywell
| |
|
hee |
|
Instrument bus
Analogue | Flight control bus
inputs Analogue outputs
Discrete Discrete outputs

| |
inputs |

fey | sae DC voltages |

converter ne PNM |
aa ese
2S al

servo approach which provides increased accuracy over conventional open loop
connections. The power supply converts aircraft power to the regulated d.c. volt-
ages and a.c. power signals required by the system. The AHRU should be
mounted at the centre of gravity of the aircraft. :
The AHRS offers several advantages over traditional vertical and directional
gyros. Principal among these is in the area of performance. In a conventional
vertical gyro, automatic vertical erection is ‘cut-off when the roll angle, and in
some cases the pitch angle as well, exceeds a certain value, typically 5 to 10
degrees. This causes the gyro to produce a vertical error proportional to its free
drift during extended large bank angle manoeuvres. A related problem concerns
shallow bank angles just below cut-off, where the automatic erection loop causes
the gyro to erect to a false vertical induced by the turning acceleration. In order
to overcome these problems, the AHRS uses velocity-damped vertical erection
loops proven in advanced military applications.
Conventional gyros are susceptible to ‘gimbal lock’ under certain conditions.
As the AHRS dispenses with gimbal mounted gyros this circumstance cannot
occur.
As modern flight control systems are able to make effective use of rate and
acceleration feedback terms, which are not directly available from simple directional
and vertical gyros, the use of an AHRS has reduced the number of components
such as additional rate gyros and accelerometers. This is possible as the device
provides direct measurement of these quantities and supplies all required data for
the DAFCS in both Earth-based and aircraft-body axis coordinate reference
frames. Angle of attack is computed for the flight control system as a function of
true airspeed, altitude rate and pitch angle.
In addition to the special outputs, the AHRS provides the standard analogue
signals such as pitch, roll and heading synchros, slaving error, true rate of turn
and normal acceleration. Also, analogue outputs are generally available for weather
radar antenna stabilisation in pitch and roll.
AHRS systems offer improved levels of self monitoring over earlier devices. The
central processor in the AHRU performs continuous self-checking of data and
computations. A pre-flight test provides pilot verification of system operation.
The AHZ-600 has two modes provided for routine operation, the normal mode
in the attitude channel and the slaved mode in the heading channel. An air data
computer provides true air speed allowing compensation for acceleration-induced
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170
 Laser technology
attitude errors. The slaved mode for heading utilises the flux valve to align the
heading outputs.
In-built safety devices compensate for the failure of any elements in the system,
allowing safe continued flight in the event of failed inputs such as true air speed,
or a slaving loop failure.
Several test modes are routinely incorporated in AHRS systems. These can be
automatic, on power-up, or initiated by crew command, and are in addition to
continuous monitoring of function and output.

LASER TECHNOLOGY

In recent years, more and more extensive use has been made of laser technology.
The medical field was among the first to make radical use of the special properties
associated with light. However, the laser gyro is among the more remarkable of
a growing list of uses.
As discussed earlier, strapdown inertial technology measures rotation rate. The
laser gyro measures this rate by using the properties of two laser beams rotating
in opposite directions within a cavity.
The principles of laser generation go beyond the requirements of this book.
However, a brief description will prove useful. A d.c. voltage is applied across a
laser cavity, establishing an electrical discharge in the mixture of helium and neon
gases present in the cavity. The discharge that develops is very similar to that
produced by a neon sign.
A complex physical activity now takes place, whereby the neon atoms are
‘excited’ by collision with the helium atoms. The high energy neon atoms cause
the generation of additional photons, resulting in the amplification of light, or
‘lasing’. The repeated amplification of the light that is forced to reflect between
mirrors results in a steady state oscillation — referred to as a ‘laser beam’.
A laser gyro measures attitudes, as does a traditional gyro, but it operates in
an entirely different way. It contains at least three mirrors so that the laser beams
travel around an enclosed area. Such a configuration allows the generation of two
distinct laser beams occupying the same space; one travelling in a clockwise direc-
tion, the other anti-clockwise. The operation of the ring laser gyro is based on
the effect that rotational movement has on the two beams.
The effect utilised is called the Sagnac effect, which, put simply, is that vari-
ations in the laser beam’s length, caused by any rotational effects cause a change
in frequency of the beam’s wavelength. These frequency changes are extremely
small, and would be impossible to measure to the required accuracy. However, the
difference in the frequencies of two beams travelling in opposite directions within
the same cavity can be measured, because of the interference or fringe pattern
formed. The signal generated is inherently digital, and hence needs no processing
prior to transmission to the microprocessor element of the inertial unit.
Since its invention in 1960 the device which, strictly speaking, is neither a ring
nor a gyro, but an accurate and extremely sensitive sensor of rotation, has shown
remarkable reliability with mean time between failures measured in thousands
rather than hundreds of hours. On tests the laser gyros have run for 60,000 hours
without failure. The British Aerospace facility at Bracknell tested their first system
in a Royal Aircraft Establishment Comet in October 1981. In two years of flight
test the system exceeded its design accuracy, achieving two nautical miles per hour
in flights of over ten hours’ duration. BAe is currently developing “Triad’, a
three-axis monoblock laser gyro in which rotations in all three axes are measured
171
 Navigation Systems

by the same gyro. This is expected to be less expensive than the three single-axis
units which it will replace.

The Laser gyro Using the Honeywell Ring Laser Gyro as the basis for description, each gyro is
a triangular shaped laser that produces two light beams travelling in opposite
directions. Laser radiation from a central source is reflected around the triangle
by mirrors at each corner. One of the three corners has the prism that allows the
two beams to mix together to form the interference fringe pattern on the detector
(Fig. 7.9).

Fig. 7.9 Ring laser gyro — Servoed

mirror
schematic drawing Fringe pattern
Honeywell

Partially
transparent
mirror Gas discharge
region
Two
photocell
detectors Cathode

Corner prism

Light beams

Piezoelectric
dither motor |

While the gyro is stationary, the fringe pattern will also remain stationary since
the frequencies of each of the beams is the same. Rotational movement of the gyro
will cause a shift in the fringe pattern to compensate for the variation in frequency
now measured.
At low rotation rates, the two light beams can get ‘locked-in’ together. To
prevent this happening, resulting in a loss of information at these rates, a dither
motor is installed to vibrate the assembly thoughout the lock-in region, and the
beams are then optically decoupled from the gyro output.
Accuracy of a laser gyro is a function of the length of the optical path, with
changes in accuracy improving greatly for a relatively small increase in length.
Considerable research has taken place on the question of four-versus three-sided
gyros. Honeywell opted for the triangular shape as a means of obtaining acceptable
accuracy from the smallest possible space.
The outstanding level of reliability and accuracy which has been achieved with
inertial guidance systems has led to their introduction in most major jet transport
aircraft, a trend which is likely to continue for, at least, the rest of this century.
The greatly superior reliability of electronic components over the simple mechan-
ical systems which they have replaced has been proved conclusively in well over
half a million flight hours.
Figure 7.10 demonstrates the extent to which inertial reference units provide
vital data to all of a modern jet aircraft’s sub-systems, hence the need for the levels
of reliability being achieved.
‘

172
 Bibliography

Displays Flight Ground

EAD/EHSI Weather proximity Flight
VSI management control
RDMI radar computers vernung
system computers

@ Attitude
e Three-axis position,
© Attitude velocity, and @ Magnetic @ Three-axis body rates
®@ Heading Initial @ acceleration heading and accel. velocity,
@ Track position ® Magnetic heading attitude, track rate,
e Wind @ Attitude track angle, heading
@ Drift e True heading @ Discretes
@ Three-axis velocity/acceleration
@ Inertial vertical speed

© Ground speed
@ Acceleration
Anti-skid IRS Yaw damper
autobrake
t eena ae
Ground speed
systems © Body lateral
acceleration
@ Roll angle

@ True heading ; :
Air data Initial e @ Track angle [Link] altitude
computer iti Present position e Attitude
p ¢ Altitude rate position S Vinndisneed and © Acceleration
e setae direction @ Inertial vertical speed
° TAS © Ground speed

Digital Inertial
: Thrust
flight
mcadata ¢ Lat/long reference management
acquisition | ¢ wind mode computer
system © Drift angle panel
unit @ Flight path angle
e Inertial vertical speed

Fig. 7.10 Boeing 757/767 The future offers a new generation of inertial references based on fibre optic
inertial reference technology, still generally at a concept stage. This will allow for improvements in
unit interface data transmission due to the virtually ‘noise’-free environment that would then
diagram Honeywell
exist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beck, G. (ed.), Navigation System, van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971.

F AA, Instrument Flying Handbook, Various.
Flight International magazines, Various.
Honeywell Avionics, Training Manuals, Various.
Sperry Commercial Flight Systems, Training Manuals, Various.
Stensland, R. A. Principles of Strapdown Laser Inertial Navigation, 1984.

173
 CHAPTER 8 COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
THOMAS T. BROWN CEng, FIEE

Mr Brown has recently retired from GEC Avionics Ltd. Basildon where, since
1960, he has been involved in major research and development programmes, such
as VHF, high power SSB equipment, Selcal, Area navigation, TACAN and
UHF. Since 1976 he was worked on computerised AF systems, secure speech,
introduced ATE and carried out investigations into JTIDS.
In 1979 he was seconded to The Hague to join the MIDS team, an
international body on Command, Control and Communications, while from 1981
to 1984 he was involved in JITDS frequency clearance with the CAA and RAE.
In 1939 Mr Brown qualified with a Higher [Link] Ist Class and the
Polytechnic Bronze Medal in Radio Engineering at the Polytechnic of Central
London. From 1940 to 1946 he was a Royal Air Force Signals Officer, the last
two years of which were spent in the Interservices Research Bureau on
clandestine radio design for the Special Operations Executive.
After the war he joined Marconi W. T. Ltd. in the Air Transmitter Dept.
Writtle. Later, as head of the Air Receiver Dept. he designed, among other
equipment, the Comm/Nav VHF receiver used for the original Autoland system.
Mr Brown holds 16 patents and, excluding restricted reports, has published
seven technical papers.

All branches of electronics have sprung from and are based on classic radio theory
and use components originally developed in this field. Later, specialised branches
evolved in radio communication, such as propagation and antenna theory, navi-
gational aids, radar, (and television) servo control, computers, digital techniques,
and information theory.
Avionics makes use of all these disciplines and, while radio communication itself
has been in use since the early part of the century, its functioning is being
continuously transformed by re-incorporating devices and systems drawn from
subsequent development in the above branches in a somewhat ‘chicken and egg’
process. It has been suggested that major advances in science occur in areas in
which two disciplines overlap. In the case of avionic communications, examples are
frequent. The necessity of miniaturisation of components plus the development of
transistor technology led to the advent of the integrated circuit, this in turn was
incorporated in the computer field leading to the microprocessor which again has
transformed the way in which signal processing and data handling are carried out.
For example, the availability of powerful computing facilities has realised math-
ematical processing with information theory for signal coding and error control,
real time channel evaluation (RTCE), voice synthesis (Vocoder) and voice recog-
nition (probability theory).
Servo controls originally developed for operation by remote sensor or manual
control are now operated by microprocessors utilising stored data. Such systems
174
 Design considerations
automatically tune receivers and transmitters and match antennas, if necessary,
according to the aircraft location.
In conjunction with appropriate flight control systems, aircraft on scheduled
flights have been landing automatically utilising the signals from the VHF/UHF
ILS ground transmitters for about the last two decades, showing among other
things, the reliability and stability of this generation of receivers.
In the succeeding sections, only a brief aspect of certain avionic communications
can be covered in the space. Further coverage of related subjects as above can
be found in other chapters of this book and more detailed information may be
obtained from the bibliography at the end of this chapter. However, at this stage
a summary of the principles of engineering design of avionic units may be helpful.

DESIGN PRACTICE

The specific design requirements of avionics communication equipment is not

apparently dissimiliar to that of normal high-grade communication equipment
except that it usually covers greater frequency ranges and is intermittently being
channelled by remote control. In its civil or military aeronautical environment,
equipment differs significantly both in performance and reliability from equipment
designed for working in a conventional environment. Also, safety and lives may
depend on its functioning at all time and in all conditions.
A prime requirement is reliability, and a high proportion of the cost results from
the extra circuit and mechanical design needed to maintain a full operational
performance in an environment far more severe than in office or factory. Reliability
depends on both circuit and mechanical design. Circuit design comes initially and
depends on concepts in part original, but which must have a sound engineering
basis. Much of this depends on the experience gained with earlier designs in
practice, and may not necessarily be obvious to those coming in from other fields
of engineering.
Much may be summarised as ‘tolerancing’. The overall equipment must perform
with only a small given percentage degradation under climatic variations of
temperature from —60 °C to +70 °C, atmospheric pressure from that equivalent
to sea-level to 80,000 ft, humidity to 100 per cent, effectively from steam to
freezing water. These conditions are realised practically by testing in environ-
mental chambers in which the conditions are cycled over the extremes for periods
of more than a week. In addition, mechanical tests of vibration using frequency
sweeps from 0 to 2000 Hz acceleration and bump tests are also carried out in this
period. Various selected circuit parameters will be monitored by instruments and
recorded throughout all these cycles. Later the equipment will be tested for power
supply variations including voltage surges, spikes and ripple. EM testing including
susceptibility to external electrical interference and production of unwanted
harmonics and spurious radiation products is also carried out.
The reason for the ‘tolerancing’ concept in design thus becomes apparent, as
there is no point in designing a 100 MHz oscillator using a ceramic capacitor with
temperature coefficient of —750 ppm as tuning element, since the frequency of the
oscillator can vary by about 3.5 MHz between the operating temperature extremes,
although this design might be acceptable for domestic equipment at room tempera-
tures. Similarly, transistor parameters vary greatly with temperature; until recently
the design of high gain d.c. amplifiers to function over such temperature ranges
was difficult, mainly because of temperature differentials between the transistors
and compensating components. Later, when i.c. operational amplifiers on one chip
became available, this and any other compensation were already incorporated in
175
 Communications Systems

the chip, so the difficult part of the design had already been pre-packaged.
As a consequence of these environmental conditions, it is essential to ‘know
your components’, and the effects of variation of supply voltage, temperature,
humidity and drive level on them and also the effects of ageing and overloading
on overall performance characteristics.
The function of analogue circuits in particular is dependent on their transfer
characteristics, which are only approximately linear with environment and ageing.
Variation of components causes drift in overall system parameters such as gain,
tuning, power output, feedback, etc.
There is thus a very large number of possible combinations of characteristics
drifting in different ways, the sum of which must remain within an overall perform-
ance tolerance. For this reason it is usual and necessary to produce several models
of the same equipment to check that these drifts are minimal, and that the
manufacturing tolerances are acceptable to give the required performance. Of
course in the initial design all these limits should have been calculated and/or
measured in detail. Today it is practicable to do these calculations both faster and
to a greater extent by computer simulation, but nevertheless it is still essential to
prove the design by making such models. These normally consist of a ‘breadboard’
produced in the laboratory to devise the circuits experimentally, followed by ‘A’
models to approximate the mechanical layout from preliminary DO drawings from
engineer’s sketches, and then after preliminary testing, a series of ‘B’ models made
to prove the DO mechanical and assembly production drawings incorporating
modifications found necessary from the ‘A’ models. Apart from proving the
production drawings, “B’ models also check the ordering system. One of the models
is used for Type Approval testing in the environmental chambers, while the others
are used with the customer for system and flight trials, checking Ministry of
Defence specifications etc. The number of models made depends on the complexity
of design and size of order, a sequence of 1, 4 and 10 models being typical.
Production then follows these. Some companies term ‘B’ models, ‘pre-production’
models, and in other cases, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ models are telescoped into ‘AB’ models
when printed-circuit board (PCB) design has been used initially.
The performance of current digital type systems shows a considerable improve-
ment over the older analogue systems in both manufacturing consistency and
reliability in the field. This appears inherent, as each element in a digital system
has only two states, whereas there is continuous gradation in parameters in
analogue systems. Good design in the past has often made use of this knowledge
where appropriate — as the old transmitter design adage says, ‘Bias hard and drive
hard’. This was evinced in another aspect by the speed and consistency in which
ranges of digital i.c.s appeared on the market compared with analogue i.c.s, which
tended to be both late in availability and variable in performance, indicating greater
design and manufacturing difficulties. One might safely conclude that the steady
replacement of analogue by digital systems has already resulted in improved
communications reliability and will continue to do so.

FREQUENCY BANDS

Allocation of frequencies is by international treaty the responsibility of the Inter-

national Telecommunications Union (ITU). Geneva. Frequency band nomencla-
ture is defined in the ITU Radio Regulations, sect. 2.1. in decade steps of 3 to
30 Hz upwards. (See Chapter Seven.)
Aircraft communication is carried out by radio in the following frequency bands:
176
 HF transmission

VLF, Very low frequencies. 3 to 30 kHz

MF medium frequencies 200 to 1600 kHz
HF high frequencies 2 to 30 MHz
VHF very high frequencies 100 to 200 MHz
UHF ultra high frequencies 200 to 400 MHz.
2 1540 to 1660 MHz
These adjectival designations are convenient in referring to transmissions in
those bands allocated for radiocommunication by aircraft. Other designations, such
as C-band and X-band etc, used for radar and ground/satellite transmissions at
microwave frequencies,. are only semi-official, and not being directly involved in
airborne radio communication installations are not quoted.

VLF These frequencies are receivable world-wide owing to their low propagation
attenuation and the high power of the ground transmitters used, e.g. Rugby at 5
megawatt.
Owing to an appreciable ground penetration, they can be used for communi-
cation with submerged submarines and they have some use for this purpose aboard
aircraft. Otherwise the main aircraft use is for Omega navigation signals.

MF This band is mainly used for nondirectional navigation beacons (NDBs), for use
with automatic direction finding receivers (ADF).

HF This is the basic band for long-range communication, mainly because its trans-
missions are reflected from the ionosphere. These reflections cause the ‘skip
distance’ effect with areas of non-reception depending on frequency, day/night
ionisation state over the path-length, number of sunspots, etc., and require sophis-
ticated estimation of choice of channel to ensure reliable communication.

VHF This is the standard air traffic control band using speech modulation. It is limited
to LOS, ‘line-of-sight’ range, normally about 200nm. The lower end,
108-118 MHz, is restricted to VOR/ILS functions, the remainder is used for civil
aviation.

UHF This is similar to VHF, but is restricted mainly for military aviation use. Although
in the navigation band with Tactical Air Navigation TACAN, and distance-meas-
uring equipment (DME). JTIDS on 969-1215 MHz will be used for communi-
cations as well as navigation. 1540-1660 MHz will be available for air/satellite
up/down links, the corresponding ground/satellite links being around 4.2 and
6.4 GHz.

HF TRANSMISSION
High frequency (HF) transmission nominally in the range 2-30 MHz for avionics
is the original frequency band for aircraft communication dating from the earliest
days. Its use falls into civil and military areas. In the civil area it is expected that
it will be replaced by satellite communication by means of geocentric satellites at
a distance of 23,000 miles above the Earth. However, the vulnerability of the
satellite in wartime makes this link highly suspect for military use, and the flexibility
of HF transmission for this purpose makes this still one of the most favoured
communication systems. Originally limited by the cost and weight of higher-
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 Communications Systems

powered airborne transmitters, these limitations have been greatly reduced by the
use of single-sideband (SSB) and all solid-state output stages enabling output
powers up to 500/1000 watts to be practical. However, it should also be remem-
bered that amateur transmitters using low powers of only up to 20 watts, for
decades, and clandestine portable transmitters during the Second World War, gave
remarkable ranges of many hundreds and thousands of miles, by using wireless
telegraphy, the oldest and still possibly, the most effective system, which involves
keying the continuous wave (CW) carrier of a transmitter in Morse code. and
receiving the message by heterodyning the carrier with an oscillator in the receiver
to give an audible note. Such synchronous or coherent demodulation gives a
maximum signal/noise (s/n) ratio, as opposed to the unsynchronised envelope
demodulation of amplitude modulation (AM), which is normally at least 9 dB
inferior. (although this is less of a problem with the introduction of single-
side band (SSB) systems — see Transmitter modulation).
Owing to the range of HF propagation, all kinds of electrical interference
caused by ionospheric disturbances, thunderstorms (‘static’) electrical apparatus
and other transmissions are continuously receivable from great distances all the
time. This provides the typical radio noise background, the absence of which
accounts in part of the popularity of VHF.
Fading is another characteristic caused by a combination of signal strength
variation due, in turn, to skip distance effects leading to multi-path reception. This
results from long term and instantaneous changes in the ionosphere and there is
a critical frequency at which the ionosphere reflects a vertically incident wave;
frequencies higher than this pass through the ionosphere and are not reflected.
For given distances and hence oblique angles of incidence, the maximum usable
frequency (MUF) is given by the critical frequency times the secant of the angle.
Similiarly there is a lowest usable frequency (LUF) in which noise level and
ionospheric absorption limit transmission. These two limits change continuously
throughout the 24 hours, so that an operating frequency is chosen which stays
between them as long as possible.
Even using special charts, the calculation and forecasting of these frequencies
can be a formidable task requiring a degree of experience of local conditions
(Fig. 8.1). It is important to note that the difficulties and technique of HF were

Fig. 8.1 Variations of HF MHz

transmission with
time of day 24

Maximum usable
frequency MUF

Lowest usable
frequency LUF

0 0400 0800 1200 1600 2000 2400

Hours
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 UHF/VHF transmission

such as to require a dedicated crew member on long range commercial and military
aircraft. With the advent of microprocessors able to search for, and automatically
lock on to, the best HF frequencies, many companies consider HF is making a
comeback, and some US electronics industries are reputedly re-training their
engineers in HF technology. In this context techniques are being developed to
assist the problem of unattended HF sets with automatic continuous propagation
and similar measurements — see Real Time Channel Evaluation.
To mechanise transmission and obviate the need for trained Morse operators,
digital data links have appeared. These tend to be mostly military, such as Link
11, etc., and, apart from speeding message rates, enable sophisticated signal
processing systems to be developed. A comparatively straight-forward system is
RTTY or radio teletype.
A predecessor of data links was machine Morse, an interesting and very simple
military system which pre-recorded the message in Morse on alternate metal and
insulating rings on a rod. Brushing the rod with a metal input contactor gave a
data rate of several hundreds of words/minute compared with 10/25 w.p.m. of
normal manual Morse. This technique, called ‘squirt’ was evolved during the
Second World War for clandestine agents to manage without trained operators
and minimise the danger of locating the transmitter by radio direction-finding.

UHF/VHF TRANSMISSION

The VHF and UHF bands, nominally 100 to 200 MHz and 200 to 400 MHz
respectively are line-of-sight (LOS) propagation, aircraft transmitters are normally
rated at about 25 (watts output power maximum which is sufficient to give a range
just beyond the visible horizon from an aircraft (Fig. 8.2). The effective Earth
radius for VHF is about 1.33 times the actual Earth radius. A convenient formula
is that maximum range in miles is: V2 H, + N/a, where H, is the height
of the transmitter and H, is the height of the receiver in feet.

Fig. 8.2 UHF/VHF

transmitter/receiver.
AD 3500. Frequency
range 108-173, 975,
225-399.975 MHz.
Channel spacing
25 kHz. Power
output 15 watt FM,
10 watt AM GEC
Sensors

Mostly these bands are used for air navigation - VOR/VHF omnirange and ILS
at the lower end of the VHF band from 108 to 117.975 MHz while the glideslope
functions of ILS operates between 328.6 and 335.4 MHz. Otherwise the VHF
band is used by civil aviation for voice communication such as ATC air traffic
control, position reporting, etc. The UHF band is used similarly by military aircraft
for ground/air, air/air operational purposes. There is also a semi-VHF band
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 Communications Systems

between 30 and 88 MHz that is often provided on VHF/UHF sets for close
ground support in military operations by helicopters, etc.
In the case of long-range civil routes there is a tendency to replace HF by VHF,
resulting from the increase of ground stations, and the better quality of voice
transmission. However there is the disadvantage of having to change channel
frequently owing to VHF short range and the high speed of modern aircraft. This
has been met by two developments; in the receiver, by area navigation (AN) in
which VOR and DME information is processed by a computer with the appropriate
channel being selected automatically, and on the ground by the installation in
ground stations of the offset carrier ‘Climax’ system. Here three stations equidis-
tantly separated by just under twice the line-of-sight are distributed on the
circumference of a circle. The three transmitters are on a common channel but
each is offset in frequency from its neighbour by 7 kHz, so that all three trans-
missions fall within the 25 kHz bandwidth of a receiver. With a voice modulation
common to all three, normal voice modulation is receivable over an area approxi-
mately four times that of a single transmitter without needing to change channel
at the receiver. A disadvantage is that the modulation is accompanied by a 7 kHz
beat note which approaches 100 modulation when two signal strengths are equal,
i.e. on a line equidistant and normal to the line joining two transmitters. This note
is rejected by the AF bandwidth of the receiver cutting off at 3/3.5 kHz. Problems
may occur however, with receiver ‘squelch’ systems which are intended to mute
the voice signal when the signal/noise ratio falls below a pre-set level, as the beat
note appears as a noise level. This requires additional circuit design to overcome
the problem.

REAL-TIME CHANNEL EVALUATION

Real-time channel evaluation is a systematic continuous method of selecting radio

channels to obtain those with optimum signal/noise (s/n) ratio using ancillary
search equipment.
Basically it amounts to measuring the attenuation between base station and
aircraft and also the noise on each of a selection of channels which are contin-
uously scanned to enable best choice for communication.
Various parameters have been found to correlate with these characteristics. A
low-level pilot tone transmitted from base is phase compared with a high stability
reference oscillator in the aircraft, the phase difference being measured every 10
msec and the errors counted in every 200 sec. The phase error rate or phase
stability gives a very good measure of bit error rate (BER) to be expected if this
channel is used for data or digitised speech.
Similarly, a probe bit-stream signal can be used to evaluate a channel making use
of a count of the BER from existing error-correcting code equipment. A BER of
10~? is a minimum for digitised speech, whereas machine data requires BER better
than 10~° or 1078, according to the system.
A selectively addressed data test signal from base to aircraft on each of the
available channels gives the value of the noise measured on that channel at the
base together with a reference tone. These channels are scanned by the aircraft
receiver controlled by a microprocessor which calculates the s/n ratio from the
level of the received tones and noise values transmitted. Assuming reciprocity of
propagation, the optimum channel is selected by the microprocessor algorithm
allowing for antenna characteristics and power levels.
For ‘single-hop’ radio transmission, the amount of back scatter from the ionos-
‘

180
 Aircraft antennas
phere from a pilot transmission is an indication of the amount of attenuation on
that channel. The transmission can be a frequency sweep or ‘chirp’ pulse with
the reflections or ionograms displayed on a cathode-ray oscilloscope (CRO) screen
against a frequency base rather after the fashion of the pre-radar experiments of
Appleton or Breit and Tuve.
The first three methods lend themselves to continuous automatic selection and
tuning of microprocessor controlled aircraft equipment.

AIRCRAFT ANTENNAS

Aircraft antennas fall into five categories — blades, slots, bowls, loops and long
wires — and they are also grouped into frequency bands. An essential requirement
is minimal wind resistance, structures being either streamlined as fins (blades) or
suppressed as slots in the empennage.
VHF and UHF antennas are usually rods or fins, acting as monopoles, which
are effective as the wavelength is comparable with practical physical dimensions.
At HF, the notch antenna is particularly efficient as it excites the airframe as
a radiator for only small changes in the aircraft structure with virtually no aero-
dynamic losses. It is usually regarded as an open ended slot and used as a broad-
band radiator.
Slot antennas are based on Babinet’s principle that the slot in a conducting
surface behaves as a radiator of comparable dimensions to a conductor in a
dielectric medium. The impedance of the slot is (60 pi)?/(impedance of the
complementary conductive antenna). For example, for a slot wavelength long, the
impedance is 496 ohm compared with the 73 ohm of the dipole.
The siting of antennas on the fuselage to provide polar diagrams for required
coverage, normally requires measurements from scale models of the aircraft.
Adequate attenuation between transmit and receiver antennas is necessary,
particularly at VHF, and between communication transmitters and ILS or other
navigation receivers. With an antenna above and one below the fuselage, about
40 dB is possible, the metallic aircraft structure acting as a screen. It is also poss-
ible to design the vertical polar diagram of the ILS receiver to be complementary
with that of the ground transmitter so that almost constant signal strength is
received at distances from near LOS to touchdown.
For helicopters, a successful antenna is a long rod spaced off and running
almost the length of the fuselage. Providing the fuselage has a conducting skin,
the antenna forms a large loop with the aircraft body.
VLF antennas present special difficulties; with a frequency between 17 and
60 kHz, wavelengths are 17,647 and 5000 metres. With an aircraft length of 70
metres, this is much smaller than even 1/8 wavelength. Trailing wire antennas have
been used on subsonic aircraft consisting of either a single wire from 2.5 to 8.5 km,
or a wire and counterpoise wire of 1.2 and 7.2 km respectively trailing with an
angle of 3 degree/separation.
Receiver antennas do not need high radiation efficiency as do those of trans-
mitters. Here s/n ratio is the criterion and if the atmospheric noise input is very
much greater than the receiver noise figure, there is no advantage in using large
antennas to pick up both more signal and noise. At MF and below, atmospheric
noise increases with decrease in frequency and at VLF, galactic noise, atmos-
pherics and man-made static are very high. Precipitation and local man-made static
tend to be electrostatic and can be reduced by electrostatic screening of a loop
antenna. Loop dimensions can be reduced with a ferrite core and a pre-amplifier
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 Communications Systems

to match to a transmission line, when it is termed an active antenna.

Another form of active antenna uses a short rod monopole with a remote ampli-
fier at the base; such a system is very broad-band, from 16 kHz to 30 MHz. These
arrangements are subject to intermodulation by interfering signals, requiring
special type FET input circuit design. By raising the antenna and amplifier above
the fuselage, out of the static area by a grounded metal mast of height M as a
monopole, the effective height of the antenna of height A is A/2 when M = 0,
but when raised, is A/2+M. So ratio of effective heights is: (M+A/2)/(A/2) If
A = 1 metre and M = 2 metre ratio = 2.5/.5 = 5 (15 dB).
Antennas for satellite operation at 1.6 GHz must be highly directive to ensure
sufficient gain to overcome the space attenuation of 187 dB due to the distance
of about 36,000 km to a geocentric satellite. Such an antenna must be steerable,
either mechanically, or by a phased array in which the steering is done by differ-
entially shifting the phase angle of each of the elements of the antenna. Such a
design could consist of an array of discs plated on to a dielectric base sandwiched
on a metal baseplate. These circular plates of quarter-wavelength diameter, are
each fed through a variable phase-shifting network controlled electronically. By
programming the phases correctly, the polar diagram of the assembly can be
focussed onto the satellite to give antenna gains of the order of 10 dBi, which,
taken with the satellite antenna gain, is adequate to provide sufficient signal
strength.

Antennas: matching The basic antenna can be considered as a twin wire transmission line opened up
systems so that the parallel wires now fan out 90 degrees apart from the input. Funda-
mental transmission line equations hold, the real part of the input impedance being
composed of the radiation resistance and series and shunt losses of the antenna.
At VHF and UHF, antennas are designed to provide relatively constant input
resistance across the working frequency band matching the characteristic imped-
ance, Zo, of the coaxial cable connecting to either the transmitter or receiver,
usually 50 or 70 ohm. When matched, there is minimum loss in the cable, the trans-
mitter is correctly loaded and most of the output is radiated.
Should these impedances differ, the cable is mismatched and energy is reflected
back from the cable/antenna junction, interfering with the forward waves to
provide a standing-wave pattern of alternate voltage maxima and minima along the
cable occurring at physical lengths corresponding to about a quarter the wave-
length of the frequency transmitted. The ratio of the amplitudes, Vinax/Vminy is the
voltage standing-wave-ratio (VSWR) and is a measure of the mismatch. Apart from
power loss, the cable itself radiates and this spurious radiation can cause inter-
ference with adjacent receiver circuits, or if a receiver cable, allow pick-up of
interference from local sources in the aircraft.
The voltage SWR should not be greater than about 1.3 to 2.0 for transmitter
cables, but in the case of receivers, SWR may be larger, say up to 10, since the
power levels are orders lower than the transmitter and the receiver a.g.c. will mask
input level variation, the main effect here being a loss in signal/noise ratio. As
SWR effects depend on wavelength and cable length, the effect on loss of short
cable runs at lower frequencies is not great. However at higher frequencies and/or
with longer lengths, the effects become more critical, until near the GHz band even
the effects of plug and socket connectors have to be considered and generally the
antenna connections predicate waveguides rather than coaxial cables.
Measurement of SWR from which antenna impedance could be calculated is
made by inserting a section of tapped or slotted line in series with the cable and
‘

182
 Aircraft antennas

antenna and measuring the difference of voltage level at successive intervals.

Alternatively the resistive and reactive components of the input impedance may be
measured at discrete frequency intervals with an r.f. bridge, and in either case the
readings plotted on a Smith chart. More conveniently, this is now done directly
with a swept frequency device such as the ZG Diagraph or HP Network Analyser
giving real and imaginary components and phase angle of the input impedance
(or admittance) as a continuous characteristic across the frequency bandwidth.
These devices have the advantage that matching stubs (sections of line to simulate
desired reactance characteristics) may be designed to bring the input impedance
of the antenna to match the transmission line across the band.
With HF antennas, the case is quite different. The frequency band ratio is
about 15:1 (2-30 MHz) compared with only about a 2:1 ratio for the VHF and
UHF bands of 100-150 and 200-400 MHz.
The antenna length is normally small compared with the wavelength, so, together
with the variety of designs encountered on aircraft, the problem arises of matching
a ‘random antenna’ throughout this band to 50 ohm.
Input impedance/frequency characteristics of such antennas show fairly violent
changes in series reactance across the band changing sign every quarter wave
fractions of the wavelength.
The typical ‘short antenna’ has a very low series radiation resistance in series
with a large capacitive reactance, say a few ohm resistance and up to 500 ohm or
more reactance at any one frequency. To obtain maximum efficiency it is necessary
to resonate out the reactance with another of opposite sign and transform the
series resistance into an equivalent shunt resistance to match the transmission line.
Earlier designs of transmitters coupled the antenna directly into the output stage
using a simple parallel LC circuit in which the antenna was tapped up the power
amplifier PA tank inductance, while manually maintaining tuning with a variable
capacitor until an r.f. ammeter in series with the antenna read maximum antenna
current. This necessitated a series of interrelated adjustments for tuning and
matching at each frequency change.
The next generation design used in the Second World War was to preset
controls for a small given number of frequencies by mechanical click-stops that
were set up before flight. After the War, these click-stops were replaced by
designs using remotely controlled stepping motors. These systems were limited to
not more than a dozen or so preselected frequency channels, so with the growth
of aircraft communication traffic and the concurrent appearance of frequency
synthesiser systems permitting almost limitless choice of frequency channels at will,
limitations in operation with such types of antenna tuning units (ATUs) led to the
design of more complicated automatically tuned matching units using pi-filter
networks in which the elements were driven by servo motors controlled with
sensing devices such as phase-detectors and resistance magnitude detectors. The
matching network variables were rolling coil inductors and vacuum sealed variable
capacitors (to deal with the high r.f. voltages). The sensors measured the resistive
and reactive components at the antenna base and servoed the output of the
antenna tuning unit to 50 ohm to match the transmission line (Fig. 8.3). In order
to reduce losses, later ATUs were designed in sealed containers mounted directly
at the aircraft antenna base, since, with short antennas, particularly notches,
having fractional or only a few ohm series resistance, most of the power could be
lost in the series resistance of the connecting wire and earth return.' Similarly,
the voltage across the high antenna series reactance will be many hundreds of volts
to force sufficient current through the antenna resistance. In fact in one initial
183
 Communications Systems

Fig. 8.3 Automatic antenna Magnitude Phase

tuning unit (ATU) — detector discriminator x
,; Antenna
basic circuit

\
installation, due to partial mismatch, keying the transmitter turned on some of the
aircraft lights and interfered with the flight control servo system.
These ATUs are relatively bulky and being mechanically driven suffer normal
mechanical maintenance problems. For some later applications, they are somewhat
slow to tune, 20-40 seconds being typical. The latest designs use fixed inductors
and capacitors switched by vacuum reed-relays in binary banks after the fashion
of digital-to-analogue converters, being controlled by microprocessors from the
antenna sensor information. Such ATUs can tune in five seconds or possibly less
and have virtually no moving parts. Network combinations can be set up from
programmes in the computer read-only memory (ROM) so that with given antennas,
operation in say a frequency-hopping mode, need only depend on very few relays
with an order of milliseconds operating time. By using heavy duty PIN diodes, this
can be reduced still further.

RECEIVERS

Current airborne receivers are virtually free of mechanical moving parts such as
tuning capacitors and waveband switches, these functions now being carried out
by remotely controlled varactor tuning diodes and diode switches.
The replacement of RF transistors by MOSFETs has greatly improved cross-
modulation and spurious responses due to unwanted high level transmissions.
Figures of —80 dB spurious rejection and comparable cross-modulation are now
available. These characteristics are particularly important when receivers are used
in conjunction with navigation processing units or are self-contained navigation
receivers for ILS or ADF use, as spurious inputs can lead to navigational errors.
Adjacent channel selectivity obtained by ceramic IF filters give flat frequency
passbands varying between about 8 and 30 kHz for 6 dB cutoff with about twice
these bandwidths at 60 dB or 80 dB down according to the operational require-
ments.
Automatic gain control (AGC) line filtering is important, as 30 Hz VOR or
90/150 Hz ILS signal traces can remodulate the incoming RF signal causing errors
in the demodulated navigation output. Similarly it is necessary that phase-shift
through the RF and detector stages is zero at these frequencies. Phase-shift of
the 480 Hz deviation of the 9960 Hz VOR FM sub-carrier may be caused by
ripples in the ceramic IF filter passband causing frequency discrimination and
resultant amplitude modulation conversion of the 30 Hz FM modulation which will
give an error when added to 30 Hz AM modulation.
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 Recetwvers

The shift from analogue to digital signalling has resulted in new concepts in
the design and evaluation of receivers, the probability of bit error rate (BER) is
now a measure of sensitivity rather than minimum signal for specified output in
a given s/n environment. Pre and post digital processing of the signal by error-
coding systems is now practicable using specialised very-large-scale integrated-
circuit (VLSI) packs to implement functions like Reed-Solomon coding, hitherto
impracticable owing to the amount of components required.
Tuned circuit filters are being replaced by digital filters, at first at LF, but
increasingly at higher frequencies as LSI technology improves. This obviates one
of the main design problems in airborne equipment, namely, temperature and
ageing changes in tuned circuits due to the severe environmental conditions.
Miniaturisation and cooling problems are also reduced by such replacement, since
tuning inductors and capacitors are both bulky and susceptible to heat differen-
tials.
Automatic gain control, (AGC) functions normally requiring amplifying stages
biased back by a d.c. control voltage, are being replaced by an integrated circuit
IC digital/analogue converter driving an attenuator. AGC filtering problems noted
above do not occur in this system and time constants may be adjusted to any value
up to infinity, i.e. as a limit, the gain of an amplifier may be set to be constant at
a desired level after the incoming signal has momentarily disappeared.
The use of local microprocessors enables these functions and others like auto-
matic channel selection with time or geographical location to be carried out by
digital signals either locally or even from the ground. Such cases may arise in the
use of military frequency-hopping receivers, where both tuning and frequency
synthesisers must be controlled in operating time in the order of milliseconds.

Receiver sensitivity The ultimate sensitivity of a receiver is set by the thermal noise in the input circuit.
The sensitivity of broad band receivers used for radar is usually qualified by
noise factor, i.e., the input level from a noise generator to raise the noise power
output of a receiver by 3 dB in the absence of a signal. A perfect receiver would
have a noise factor of 0 dB.
For practical measurement of HF and VHF/UHF communication receivers
using voice modulation it is customary to use an RF signal generator with AF
modulation depth set to 30 per cent at 1 kHz, and an AF output power meter on
the receiver output. After tuning the receiver, the signal generator level is reduced
until the AF output changes by 6 dB when the modulation is switched on and off.
The signal generator level is noted, say 3 microvolts EMF, and the receiver is said
to have a sensitivity of 3 microvolts for a signal plus noise to noise ratio of
6 dB.
Some generators are calibrated in ‘soft microvolts’ or PD across the matched
50 ohm output, and this gives an apparent receiver sensitivity optimistic by 6 dB.
Similiarly the AF bandwidth of a receiver affects the noise on the basis of:
N? = 4kTRB where k = 1.37 x 10°73 J/K
T = _ temperature, Kelvin
R = _ resistance, ohm
B= _ bandwidth, Hz

For a normal communication receiver in voice mode, the AF bandwidth response

is typically 300-3500 Hz. Values of 1-3 microvolts EMF for 6 dB s+n/n ratio
would be typical values for such a receiver. A receiver with a narrower response
would give an apparently more sensitive figure using this method, although in prac-
185
 Communications Systems

tice the performance could be worse if measured more accurately by the

Articulation Index method (see Voice Systems).

FREQUENCY SYNTHESIS

A measure of progress in avionic communications has been the steady improvement

in accuracy and stability of frequency generation. It is fundamental in information
theory that the amount of information that can be transmitted is proportional to
the bandwidth. The continual growth in air traffic has necessitated allocation of
more and more channels in given frequency band limits, as well as the need for
information to be transmitted in narrower channels to improve the signal/noise
ratio, noise also being proportional to bandwidth.
In earlier days, frequency control was by L€ oscillators tuned by hand-cali-
brated variable capacitors. As receivers became more stable and easy to check
against broadcast, base stations or other standards, it was necessary to back-tune
(or net) the transmitter to the receiver so that both would be on the same channel.
This applied in the early part of the Second World War. During this period, plug-
in crystals became available for transmitters, but as such large numbers of crystals
were required for the thousands of aircraft in service together with the number
of frequencies involved, production became a problem. This was alleviated by the
discovery that a crystal’s frequency could be permanently shifted a small
percentage by X-ray radiation and also that almost all operational flights were in
‘radio silence’. Even so, each airfield had to maintain very large crystal stores.
Towards the end of the war, an HF military receiver was designed with a
crystal calibrator to give harmonics for calibration ‘pips’ at 100 kHz intervals (the
R1475), and the first multichannel VHF transmitter/receiver (T/R) used a tele-
phone uniselector to count harmonics from a crystal derived harmonic comb to
select the channel (the TR1407). These sets were developed by Marconi and
GEC respectively.
Civil aviation radio was normally on HF after this period. After the Atlantic City
Convention laid down that frequency tolerance of transmissions should be less
than 0.02 per cent from all causes, HF T/R combinations using banks of remotely
switched crystals of up to 200 plug-in units; were designed.
Subsequently, frequency synthesis was originated and concentrated on VHF
equipment, where direct mixing from banks of crystals switched in decade steps
of frequency gave output sum frequencies in 1 MHz, 100 kHz and 50 kHz steps.
One HF drive was developed, however, using sum and difference frequencies from
a bank of 10 selectable crystals between 2.5 and 3.5 MHz, directly mixed with
frequency from a stable variable oscillator of 400-500 kHz. Continuously variable
frequency output between 2.0 and 4.0 MHz could then be frequency multiplied
to cover the remainder of the HF band, the output frequency having been stabil-
ised in the ratio of the crystal to variable oscillator frequencies to give overall
stability approaching that of a single crystal (Fig. 8.4).
Synthesisers using crystals banks were the norm until the mid-1970s, the
miniature metal or glass cans being physically convenient to use. Circuit config-
urations were direct mixing, described above, and so-called indirect mixing, where
a continuously tuned VHF variable oscillator was used as the input to a multiple
superheterodyne chain of mixers and decade crystal oscillators to give a 5 MHz
output. This was phase compared with a 5 MHz crystal in a phase discriminator
whose d.c. output was used as a control voltage to lock the oscillator via a varactor
diode acting as a voltage controlled capacitance. Preliminary coarse tuning was
186
 Frequency synthesis
Fig. 8.4 Direct mixing
frequency synthesiser

Multiplier

2fs = 4-8 MHz

4f, = 8-16 MHz

11 switched
crystals

Variable frequency
2-5-3:-5 MHz oscillator
100 kHz steps 0-4—0-:5 MHz

fo = 118-136 MHz
output

50-51 MHz Phase

discriminator

-|---7A--
EG (~)

118-136 MHz
variable frequency 18 crystals 10 crystals 2 crystals
oscillator 85— . 5:0-
68 MHz ; 5:05 MHz

1 MHz 100 KHz 50 KHz

steps steps steps
f; fo fz
fo = f; + fo + fg

Fig. 8.5 Indirect mixing by motor drive and the final locked frequency was the sum of the crystal frequen-
frequency synthesiser cies selected (Fig. 8.5). It will be seen that this is basically the same system as
for 118-136 MHz current digital synthesisers, the successive heterodyning down with crystals being
transmitter drive
replaced by successive dividing down with digital dividers (Fig. 8.6).
The reason for developing indirect mixing is to minimise the production of
spurious intermodulation terms between harmonics of the two oscillator frequen-
cies which is inherent in the mixing process. Sum and difference products of up
to the fifth and sixth harmonics are troublesome and if close to the wanted carrier
187
 Communitations Systems

Fig. 8.6 Comparison of a) fout ’ f; + fo + fg

indirect mixing
frequency synthesiser
(a) with digital
frequency synthesiser
(b)
(a) Variable controlled
oscillator VCO is
heterodyned down to the
h base discriminator @
(b) VCO is divided down to
discriminator. 6.4 MHz
frequency standard is
oven controlled.

Frequency
selector
switches

700 Hz LP
ar (loop filter)

radiated, will cause interference in other channels. Specifications call for all
spurious radiation to be below 60 dB of the carrier, and since VHF amplifiers tend
to be broad band, these are radiated almost unattenuated.
With the introduction of single sideband transmission (SSB), the need for more
channels and greater frequency stability on HF arose, as the suppressed carrier
of the transmission had to be restored in the receiver with less than 20 Hz
frequency error. Several synthesisers were developed based on the superhetero-
dyne technique of direct mixing with crystal banks, and in one case the inaccuracy
of the crystal oscillators was taken out by pulling them to harmonics of an oven-
controlled reference oscillator of 10~® accuracy. In another, all oscillators were
oven-controlled. Small AT cut crystals have a temperature coefficient of about plus
or minus 2 parts per million (p.p.m) (2 Hz per MHz) per degree C. Military
climatic requirements span —60 to +70 °C, so that at 20 MHz the frequency error
could be 5.2 kHz either way plus a grinding tolerance of 50 p.p.m. or 1 kHz. It
was therefore necessary to both oven-control the crystals and trim them individ-
ually for tolerance.
Although improvements in crystal units have been made such as temperature
compensating circuits within the glass containers, there is clearly an advantage
in using oscillators whose frequency is locked in an indirect mixing circuit to one
oven-controlled reference oscillator.
Such circuits became practicable with the availability of high frequency inte-
grated circuit (IC) digital dividers. These take inputs at any frequency and divide
this by an integer factor, often selectable.

188
 Voice systems

Current synthesisers use a variable frequency oscillator coarsely tuned by

diode-switched capacitors to approximate the required frequency. The frequency
of an oven-controlled crystal reference oscillator of 6.4 MHz is divided down to
25 kHz by a fixed digital divider of 256 times and applied to a phase discriminator.
The variable oscillator frequency is divided by a variable divider chain whose
division ratio can be set to give a nominal 25 kHz from 108 to 400 MHz by the
remote frequency selector which is selecting the coarse tuning capacitors, and this
nominal 25 kHz then goes as the other input to the discriminator. A beat note
produced between the two frequencies appears at the discriminator output and
is applied via the control line to a varactor diode across the variable oscillator
tuning circuit. This voltage sweeps the variable frequency across the sub-band
range. As coincidence of frequencies occurs in the discriminator the beat note falls
to zero, and the resultant d.c. control voltage, now proportional to the phase error
between the two signals, phase locks the variable oscillator to the reference via
the varactor. The variable oscillator may thus be set in 25 kHz steps to the desired
UHF/VHF frequency having the frequency stability of the reference oscillator
(Fig. 8.6).

VOICE SYSTEMS

Aircraft voice transmissions operate in a high acoustic noise environment. Unpres-

surised military aircraft incorporate microphones in the oxygen mask or use throat
microphones. Noise-cancelling microphones may be used in pressurised aircraft.
Some improvement in s/n ratio is attempted by restricting the AF frequency
response of microphones, amplifiers and headphones to between 300 Hz and
3.) KHz:
Earlier microphones of the carbon granule type gave a high voltage output (up
to 0.5 v) simplifying electrical noise pick-up in the pre-amplifier, but had a peaky
frequency response, were electrically noisy and suffered from non-linearity with
resultant distortion and acoustic noise intermodulation. Later electromagnetic
microphones, although of lower output, typically 10 mV, are linear in transfer
response.
Many microphones and headsets response peaked around 1 kHz, to which the
human ear was thought most sensitive. Historically, this is a relic from the days
of continuous wave CW reception when Morse code using a 1 kHZ tone was the
normal means of communication. A good operator then was reputedly capable of
reading Morse in adverse s/n ratios of 10-20 dB down, which is still better than
an average data link, and is thought to be probably due to the effective tone
selectivity and pattern recognition of the human brain.
For a voice system, modern analysis uses the articulation index, based on the
hearing characteristic curves of the ear. In this the voice spectrum from 250 to
6000 Hz is divided into 20 unequal frequency sub-bands each contributing 5 per
cent of the information to the Index, assuming a voice amplitude range of 30 dB
between voice minimum and peaks. If noise is present, the contribution is reduced
to 1/6X[(dB voice peaks) — (dB noise average)] thus if noise is 30 dB below the
voice peaks, the contribution of the sub-band is 5 per cent. But if the noise is
10 dB below voice peaks, this reduces to 1/6 x 10 or 1.67 per cent. The sum of
calculations for all 20 sub-bands then gives the total articulation index. If the noise
has a flat spectrum (white noise), owing to the slight falling overall characteristic
of the hearing response used, some improvement in articulation index is obtained

189
 Communications Systems

with about 6 dB/octave pre-emphasis of the higher frequencies of the voice

channel.
An American Air Force study of listening in high acoustic noise levels in combat
aircraft established that a peaky headset response gave signals that when added
to the ambient noise could drive the ear into the region of pain when the voice
components came in the response peaks. Best results were obtained with a fully
flat frequency response.
Several techniques are used to improve s/n ratio in voice systems. One is the
so-called noise cancelling microphone, allowing sound to both sides of the micro-
phone membrane. Distant sounds striking the membrane tend to cancel, whereas
the near sound from the speaker tends to affect only the near side of the
membrane. This effect is a function of the wavelength of the distant sound, giving
an improvement of about 10 dB at 3 kHz falling to very little at low frequencies.
The polar response is directional as a cardioid.
Normally the operator initiates voice transmission by the send/receive or ‘Press-
to-talk’ switch. Later systems may use a voice operated switch (VOS) to reduce
operator work load. This utilises a trigger circuit set to operate at a chosen
microphone level. To prevent noticeable clipping at the start of a syllable, oper-
ation is less than 1-2 msec. This device normally works with an audio AGC system
compressing speech amplitude variation by up to 10:1 in dB. Apart from ‘attack
time’ similar to the VOS, a ‘hangover time’ of 200-500 msec is necessary to hold
the level between syllables to obviate chopping. By using a separate noise amplifier,
the VOS level may be set dynamically to suit varying noise conditions.
Voice clipping of the peaks of voice amplitude has been made use of in some
AM transmitters to allow a greater depth of modulation of the voice waveform than
normal. Voice waveform is very spiky with a high peak/average ratio, with conso-
nants having the highest ratio and vowels tending towards sine waves. Clipping
the peak level therefore affects mostly the consonants and squares-off the vowels
to produce a ‘gritty’ sounding distortion but with articulation almost unaltered.
Some filtering of the harmonics and intermodulation is usual if clipping up to
10 dB is used.
In modern aircraft with a variety of HF and VHF transmitter/receivers in use
and particularly with military aircraft having a large operational crew, it is
necessary to centralise these services and the intercom system so each crew member
can operate with one microphone and headset and be able to select those services
needed and communicate through them and/or with other members of the crew.
Such systems are known as CCSs or communication control systems. The audio
outputs of the aircraft receivers and intercom together with the microphone and
key lines of the transmitters, are taken into a central junction box forming bus-
lines.
A station control box connected to the junction box across the bus-lines is
provided for each crew member, with press-button or rotary selector switch and
gain controls enabling the outputs of the receivers to be selected and mixed at
desired levels together with crew intercom. Control of those transmitters selected
is by the press-to-talk key and microphone of the crew members headset.
An early system of 35 years ago provided these facilities by mixing the AF
sources with hybrid transformers and double triode valves, in a central amplifier
unit isolating the sources to prevent crosstalk. This gave intercom and a choice
of three receivers selected from ten, and one transmitter/receiver combination
selected from four at four crew stations, and with intercom only at six additional
stations.
190
 Voice systems

Later in a current system, with the advent of IC operational amplifiers, mixing

and isolation are done through attenuator resistance pads working into virtual
earth amplifiers, again in a central amplifier unit. Remote switching and gain are
by diode attenuators on thick film ICs. This gives access to 15 receivers and 4
transmitters in a typical four crew station box installation. Other combinations are
possible.
Recently a more sophisticated system switches the AF lines by multiplexer logic
ICs used as analogue switches controlled by a microprocessor. AF gains are
remotely controlled manually by variable gain op-amps in the central unit. This
system enables five independent channels of intercom and up to 20 receivers and
six transmitters to be operated from six crew stations. In addition a secure speech
overlay system provides the extremely low crosstalk or “Tempest’ requirement.
‘Tempest’ is the technique for the prevention of unwanted radiation of un-
encrypted secure speech or data. This AMRICS automatic management receiver
and intercom system also enables the transmitter/receivers to be remotely set to
Fig. 8.7 Computer auto-
a desired frequency by keying-in a channel number at the crew station panel. This
managed receiver
and intercom system is compared with the allocated frequency in a ‘look-up’ table in the microprocessor,
(receiver tuning not and the appropriate signals are sent on the standard digital tuning lines to the
shown) transmitter/receiver, which is thereby tuned (Fig. 8.7).

es
HF a
10 Receivers
rer TD TTT TT four 8 way multiplexers per
= TT
Ss SE SS
contro! panel.
eS Gee SSUES GS Gees ES

remote gain
controls
S

Operator 1
control

Data bus

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[ot
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pease |
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eee
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Microprocessor
7 and
| store

2
=
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NZ
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Ve control
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Repeat for
six operator
control panels
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191
 Communications Systems

It is to be expected that future voice systems will digitise the analogue voice
signals for transmission on a common bus-line, and probably utilise fibre-optic
linking between units throughout the aircraft to reduce cabling weight, minimise
pickup and simplify ‘Tempest’ problems.

TRANSMITTER MODULATION

Airborne communication equipment uses two systems, speech and data. Speech
modulation of the transmitter is double sideband (DSB) or A3, single sideband
(SSB) reduced carrier or A3A, SSB suppressed carrier or A3J and frequency
modulation (FM) or F3.
DSB was the most common form [Link], often low level, in which the
audio frequency AF waveform is applied as bias to the grid of the RF power ampli-
fier output stage or PA. This requires minimum modulation power, but the RF
power is reduced to a quarter since the PA must be biased to half output voltage
to enable equal upward and downward carrier swings with 100 per cent modu-
lation.
High level modulation requires a modulator of the same power as the PA. The
modulation is applied to the anode of the PA to drive the supply voltage up to
double the normal value for positive modulation peaks Some semiconductor trans-
mitters using broad-band tuning apply modulation to the power supply to all stages.
Others used a ‘floating carrier’ technique that reduces the carrier level in the absence
of modulation. DSB airborne transmitters are typically in the 20/100 watt output
power region, the higher powers being used on HF.
The increased congestion on the radio spectrum has led to restriction of
channel bandwidth and tighter frequency control. The power budget of a DSB
waveform is carrier at half power and two sidebands one quarter each. Since all
the information is contained in each sideband, by only transmitting one sideband,
an improvement of about 12 dB in s/n at the receiver is obtained made up by 3 dB
bandwidth reduction, 6 dB power improvement and 3 dB synchronous detection.
Single-sideband modulation is obtained using a double-balanced modulator that
produces sidebands with the carrier balanced out by about 40 dB; by passing the
AF input through a Hilbert transform filter (having a constant 90 degree phase
shift throughout the AF band) it is possible with another balanced modulator to
cancel one of the sidebands to the same degree. In practice, this amount may not
be sufficient to meet current tighter frequency restrictions on off-channel radia-
tion, and will thus require costly RF bandpass filters with very sharp cutoffs in
addition. The use of digital filters has been proposed in this application, as very
sharp cutoff can be obtained economically.
The reception of an SSB signal requires replacement of the missing carrier
before detection, and frequency error has to be less than about 10 Hz to give AF
output of satisfactory quality. One aspect of this is that it is no longer possible
to use an AF tone selective calling device, SELCAL, to call an unattended
receiver, as the Selcal depends on a bank of AF tone filters or tuned reed relays
with bandwidths of the order of 1 Hz. This problem can be partly obviated by
calling from the transmitter on DSB, although the s/n ratio will now be reduced
by 12 dB. Another aspect is that it is no longer possible to rely on the frequency
stability of non-temperature compensated crystals to be adequate either between
transmitter and receiver or absolutely in its channel allocation. A frequency
synthesiser having a reference oscillator of better than 0.1 p.p.m. frequency accu-
racy is therefore essential.
192
 Information theory applications

On VHF, DSB is the norm, since s/n is not a problem, propagation being
limited to line-of-sight (LOS), normally about 200 nm. Transmitter power greater
than 20 watt is not necessary. With military equipment on low flying helicopters,
due to man-made static, etc., it is thought that narrow-band FM gives better noise
performance and has other advantages, particularly in the simplicity and physical
dimensions of the modulator.
Data transmission modulation can be either keyed continuous-wave (CW) or
frequency shift keying (FSK) or phase shift keying (PSK), or combinations of all
these as in JTIDS waveforms. The present tendency in all communication links
is to digitise analogue voice signals. There are several methods of data modulation,
such as pulse coded modulation (PCM), delta, delta-sigma, pulse width and pulse
amplitude modulation. PCM is the most common with delta and delta sigma
providing a simple implementation for military mobile links. PCM normally provides
a 16 kB/s bit stream in which each byte is a word of 4 bits defining the instan-
taneous amplitude of the speech waveform. All these systems use an A-to-D,
analogue to digital converter to digitise, and a D-to-A converter to restore the
voice signal. Once digitised, speech can be processed in several ways. One is
encrypted, in which the bit-stream has a pseudo-random or ‘key’ bit-stream added
by modulo-2 addition, making the transmission unintelligible to an unauthorised
listener. This cyphered signal is then transmitted safely in any normal way, and
when received at the authorised receiver end, it is decrypted by a second modulo-
2 addition of the key bitstream (the code of which is held at each end) which then
restores the original signal.
With both encrypted and plain digitised voice, the voice spectrum has excessive
bandwidth, and this is compressed by processing the voice signal by a Voice Coder
or Vocoder. This effectively analyses and then synthesises the voice signal with
a bandwidth of at most one third of the original. The main systems are either
Channel or LPC, linear predictive coding vocoders. One standard is 2.4 kB/s.
These systems are complex; development commenced in the 1930s and is still very
active. This and machine voice recognition have both made considerable strides
in the last decade or so owing to the availability of microprocessing technology
and recent developments in coding mathematics.

INFORMATION THEORY APPLICATIONS

The last 20 years have seen the impact of information theory on avionics communi-
cations with the rapid growth in subjects such as error-correcting coding, adaptive
filtering, real-time channel evaluation, packet switching and various methods of
digital modulation. Most of this stems from the introduction of digital ICs and
microprocessors making the implementation of complex digital signal processing
practicable (see Chapter Three).
The concept of signal processing has undergone considerable modification since
the classic studies of Shannon, with extensive mathematical developments in the
error-coding field in particular leading to powerful codes such as the Reed-
Soloman family being used as normal adjuncts to communication channels.
Errors in data transmission can occur in several ways, straightforward loss of
bits in Gaussian (white) noise, in bursts or peaks of noise or interference and by
distortion due to differential propagation delays of harmonic components of the
bit-waveform which cause a smearing or overrunning of components of bits into
succeeding bits (intersymbolic interference).
Error coding is used for the first two noise cases and changes the normal plotted
193
 Communications Systems

characteristic of bit error rate (BER) versus s/n of an uncorrected system to one
having a much steeper slope. This is an improvement, but now a very small change
in s/n gives a large change in BER. Typically in an uncoded channel, change of
s/n from 4 to 8 dB might improve the BER from 10~? to 10~*. With coding the
s/n would be 2 dB to 4 dB for the same 10~* to 10~*. However there are many
kinds of codes, two main groups being classed as convolutional and block. The
convolutional example above is suitable for Gaussian noise and BERs in the 10-3
range, this BER being acceptable for digitised voice (Fig. 8.8). A Reed-Solomon
code, a block code, has a very much steeper curve, a change of 0.2 dB at 3 dB
s/n would change the BER from 10~? to 1078 and this type is mostly used for
noise burst interference where machine data requires BERs in the order of 1071”
accuracy. .

Fig. 8.8 Effect of

convolutional coding
on data message bit
error rate

Other aspects of information theory coming to the fore are adaptive filters.
These form an area of signal processing in which the system is modelled algor-
ithmically and comparison is made with the actual input using an error output to
adjust the system. These subjects are rather specialised and recondite and can be
followed in the IEE and IEEE Proceedings.
‘

194
 Data links

DATA LINKS

Data link communication differs from analogue communication in that it tends to

be communicating directly with a microprocessor system that conveys the infor-
mation to the recipient indirectly through a display or other means, although it
may be used more directly with digitised voice which may be processed or not
by encryption or vocoding. The effects of fading and interference will differ from
that on the analogue channel.
Speech and manual continuous-wave links operate successfully in poor s/n
conditions owing to the ability of operators to recognise words and sentence
patterns and interpolate missing elements by familiarity of words to make sense.
Aircraft speech messages often appear completely unintelligible to an ordinary
listener, but are quite clear to an experienced operator who is anticipating only
a limited number of familiar procedure words in a given operational situation.
Because speech incorporates a high degree of redundancy the human brain assim-
ilates this and integrates the information into a recognisable message.
Data messages however consisting of a serial bit-stream are peculiarly suscep-
tible to instantaneous loss of signal due to fading or corruption by noise as these
signals do not have the pattern-forming property of speech and loss of only
occasional bits can wreck the information content.
The criterion of a link is its minimum bit-error rate, rather than the corre-
sponding minimum received s/n ratio of an analogue channel, and most of the
complexity of data-link systems is involved in the attempt to overcome this limita-
tion. BERs of 10-7 and 10~!° are typical of voice and data channels respectively.
Propagation conditions are particularly bad in this respect on HF, and rapid
fading causes instantaneous loss of data whose bit-time is small compared with the
fade-out time. Several systems are used to compensate this, most incorporate
forward error correction (FEC), in which additional parity bits are added to each
digital word, in such a way that failure to meet a pattern criterion such as in the
simplest case, an odd or even number of bits per word rejects the word. This is
incorporated in a duplex system as Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) where, on
receipt of an error signal from the receiver, the corrupted word is re-transmitted.
Error coding is a highly specialised subject in current development, much of
which has become practicable only recently with the availability of complex digital
VHLSI packets. Coding uses either a block or a convolutional type system, and
here again the attempt is based on the provision of redundancy and pattern
analysis in the message structure.
Another way of reducing error is the use of special modulating systems such
as kineplex and data link 11. Consider the case of 75 b/s data; each bit duration
is 13 msec, a rapid fade will lose several bits. Suppose a transmitter were modulated
with 16 AF tones keyed by the data-stream in bit sequence, each tone keyed for
16 times 13 msec, the effective bit duration is thus 208 msec, although the infor-
mation rate is the same. This message is reassembled at the receiver to give the
original data-stream. The arrangement is analogous to a serial compared with a
parallel data bus. This has the advantage that not only has the chance of a bit
being lost in an instantaneous fade been reduced but also there has been the
advantage of a form of frequency—diversity transmission. There are however
disadvantages, one being the reduction of carrier power for each tone. The system
is effective for HF conditions, but in the case of VHF where this type of fading
does not exist, better results would be obtained with simple FSK or PSK
modulation. i

195
 Communications Systems

In the case of military systems in particular, data transmission is used with a

message protocol. The old Morse operator’s ‘Q’ code (going back to 1912) is the
progenitor of this. A digital message may consist of a series of words of say 224
bits, such a word as word (1) ‘Navigation’, could be followed by word (2), ‘Engine
state’; word (3), ‘Weather’; etc., each word (n) being divided into six ‘fields’ of
32 bits plus 32 bits of error-correction. Each field contains data, e.g. field 1
latitude; field 2 longitude; field 3 altitude; field 4 time of arrival (TOA), etc.
Operational organisations, on this basis, have libraries of messages (protocol)
designed to meet all these requirements.
The power of this system is that being digitally coded, it may be machine inter-
faced with both aircraft and ground computer command and control systems to read
out selected sensors automatically.
It has been proposed for civil transatlantic flights that automatic readout of all
aircraft inertial and other navigational systems should be transmitted automatically
continuously to a geostationary satellite by data-link and thence back to Air Traffic
Control Centre. This system automatic dependence surveillance, (ADS) should
obviate the occasional large position errors caused by delays in manual insertion
during aircraft movement and allow a reduction in safe separation distance between
aircraft.
A civil aircraft data link system is the ARINC communications addressing and
reporting system (ACARS) used with existing airborne radio equipment to improve
operational effectiveness and inter-company communications. Initially, in the US,
ACARS utilised VHF line-of-sight on a dedicated frequency. Some airlines were
interested in operating on HF also; this subsequently provided long range aircraft
with enhanced capability.
The basic components of an ACARS are a management unit and a control unit.
The management unit receives and transmits ground/air digital messages and
gathers data for transmission from on-board event sensors. The control unit is the
pilot interface, providing facilities to enter message text.
The major use of ACARS at present is for the receipt and transmission of
operational data such as arrival and departure information. However, engine
parameters — temperature, pressure, fuel flow, fan speeds, vibration levels — are
sent routinely as elements in an airlines maintenance plan, early information of
system malfunction allowing corrective action before incidents.
Future developments and a more complex use of the concept probably will be
linked to the extension of satellite communication availability. Other aspects of data
links are considered in the sections JTIDS, Information Theory and Transmitter
Modulation.

JTIDS

JTIDS (Joint tactical information distribution system) is a military joint-service, jam

resistant VHF communications system of advanced characteristics for intercon-
necting large numbers of operational aircraft with ground/sea battle commanders
and units to exchange tactical information in a fast-moving situation. The present
positions, weapon states, etc., of all participating aircraft, together with reports
of the disposition of hostile aircraft or missile battery locations are automatically
fed into an effective common pool from which they are drawn for display either
on a digital readout or radar/navigation screen. Relative navigation, identification
and digitised secure speech may also be implemented. Development of this system
196
 Joint tactical information distribution system (JTIDS)

in the US has been carried out over the last 10-15 years and production models
have been delivered since 1984.
The equipment is formalised for NATO military purposes as a multi-function
information distribution system (MIDS). Communication, navigation and identifi-
cation (CNI) functions are all carried out on a common digital data link operating
a protocol, Link 16, using words of 75 bits of error-coded data. (See Data links
and Chapter Three, Digital Technology.) Asa radio system, the equipmentis a digital
frequency-hopping, direct-sequence transmitter/receiver system of 1536 TDMA
time-slot channels operating as spread-spectrum across the 969-1215 MHz
frequency band (Fig. 8.9). A TACAN navigation unit is also included in the
JTIDS box as a convenient extra for use outside a JTIDS net.

Fig. 8.9 JTIDS installation

units — transmitter/
receiver (top left), data
processor group (top
right), data link
control panel
(centre) GEC
Sensors. Singer
Electronic Systems
Divisions

In operational use, a group of aircraft within line of sight participate in an

intercommunicating JTIDS net, each aircraft being allocated its own period of
transmission or time-slots from a continuous cyclic sequence of 1536 time-slots
of 7.8125 msec duration. Each aircraft transmits only in its own time-slots, but all
aircraft may receive in any time-slot. There is thus a number of transmissions from
aircraft following continuously in sequence forming a time-division multiple-access
(TDMA) system. This is analogous to each aircraft being allocated its own
frequency channel in a conventional system.
Ata rate of 128 time-slot/sec, 1536 time-slots constitute a ‘frame’ of 12 seconds,
64 frames form an ‘epoch’ of 12.8 minutes. Each time-slot can contain up to 12
Link 16 words of 75 bits of error-coded data which are updated at every frame,
while the epoch is the basic repetitive net cycle (Fig. 8.10).
Transmission waveforms are pulses of 6.4/6.6 microsecond mark/space ratio,
each pulse transmitted in sequence at a frequency chosen by pseudo-random code
selection from a list of 51 frequencies spaced apart by 3 MHz to implement the
‘frequency-hopping’ and coding characteristics. In addition, each pulse is
‘chipped’ by 32 chips of phase modulation, again selected on a pseudo-random
code basis. This spreads the spectrum between the 3 MHz spaced carriers and
provides additional coding information for the time-slot.
197
 Communications Systems

Fig. 8.10 JTIDS net time-slot

|eeactieisisies
laes
structure

EPOCH = 12:8 min 1 of 128 NETS

64 FRAMES (96,304 slots)

NETS differ only in

their unique hop
sequence
FRAME = 12 seconds
(1536 SLOTS) = 128 SLOTS/sec

Slot
start

SLOT = 7-8125 milliseconds

The result of this is a spread of noise-like signal across over 153 MHz, which
is extremely difficult to detect, jam or d.f. Also, not knowing the pseudo-noise
PN codes used, it is unlikely that a hostile receiver could lock on to or
decode the transmission.
To ensure operation it is necessary to synchronise the start of transmission time
of signals between transmitter and receiver, and this is done by a receiver awaiting
the transmission having been set up previously to approximate ‘net time’; when the
transmission arrives it may be synchronised (in a similar manner to a digital watch
being preset and keyed-on when the time-pip arrives). This synchronisation is
completed in phases of coarse and fine and it is necessary to obtain coincidence
between digital words and digits by means of transverse filters using surface
acoustic wave filter devices (SAW) or shift registers.
The achievement of ‘system’ or ‘net’ time between members of a JTIDS net is
a fundamental requirement. A member may lose radio contact with the net by going
out of range for a number of hours, but can maintain system time with a local
reference oscillator to be in coarse synchronisation, sufficient to pull into fine
synchronisation in a few seconds after returning to the net.
When in full synchronisation, relative geographical position with respect to the
net is established by round-trip timing (RTT) and Present Position Interrogation
(PPI) which interrogate other members by individual address and then calculate
the distance by the time delay between the known interrogation time and measured
reply time and from the instantaneous present position declared by the inter-
rogated aircraft. If the geographical coordinates of a ground station and/or the
instantaneous position. of at least one member are known, the system approaches
an absolute rather than a relative navigation system (Fig. 8.11).

198
 Joint tactical information distribution system (JTIDS)

Terminals

Net
operation E>

Propagation Se UIE
time = TOA

Terminal A calculating its

position from ‘P’ messages

Saas > :

ae ! Relative
= grid

(u, v) grid

Geodetic latitude
and longitude grid

Fig. 8.11 Position fixing by Since this very complex system includes individual members’ addresses and
time-of-arrival hence identity, it forms a very efficiently coded identification or IFF system,
technique for although of course, limited to the network.
JTIDS terminal
Owing to the high peak power of the pulses and the spread-spectrum waveform,
an enemy will have difficulty in jamming the system, assuming a conventional single
frequency jammer, the AJ ratio being very much greater than existing conventional
equipment. Additional protection against noise peaks and the effects of jamming
on data transmission accuracy are provided by a Reed-Solomon error-correcting
code and other anti-jamming techniques.
With 1536 TDMA time-division multiple access channels available, there is a
maximum effective overall data rate of 238 kB/s. This is reduced with error
correction and AJ techniques in some modes, but still allows a very large message
protocol to be implemented, and also permits operation of free text messages
including digital voice by means of a vocoder at 16 kB/s or 2.4 kB/s per channel
depending on the type of vocoder.
A net will normally support up to 32 transmitters, (more than one time-slot is
usually allocated to an aircraft). However, owing to the pseudo-random distri-
bution of frequencies, it is possible to operate more than one net using different
codes in the same region without mutual interference. Such an arrangement termed
‘stacked nets’ is possible because the pulses from one net can interleave with the
other with statistically negligible chance of two long codes coinciding and being
decoded in the wrong net. Numerous nets (up to 128) may be stacked in this way.
4

199
 Communications Systems

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS

Military experiments are under way to evaluate the practicability of using satellite
communications. Using L band frequencies about 1.6 GHz for the air/satellite link
and C band frequencies about 4-6 GHz for the ground/satellite link, flight trials
for civil aviation are taking place using the Marisat marine satellites with airborne
installations fitted to a Boeing 747 to implement some of the facilities described
in the Public Correspondence section. Additionally, it is hoped that improved
navigational reporting accuracy will be obtained by automatic transmission of the
inertial navigation outputs. Some of the difficulties with the air link are mentioned
in the section on Aircraft Antennas.

AERONAUTICAL PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE (APC)

Since the 1950s airlines have considered providing telephone facilities for passen-
gers, especially the growing business-traveller community, used to being in
constant telephone touch. One difficulty has been the lack of allocation of
frequencies for public correspondence from aircraft. However with the decline of
ship passenger traffic, aircraft could use the under-utilised ship/shore channels
on the HF channels. With PTT cooperation, flight trials were carried out by a
number of international carriers, using DSB amplitude modulation, with a calling
channel to allocate a frequency for the telephone call. Setting up a call by the
Flight Radio Officer was difficult and time-consuming, as by the time the
frequency was established, propagation conditions had changed, the aircraft
entering a noisy weather situation or air traffic control necessitating a retune to
ATC channels.
Of the half-dozen or so airlines who tried this, only a few actually offered the
service to passengers. By 1960 most airlines had dispensed with specialist radio
officers; all radio now being pilot operated. With a reduced crew, the handling
of passenger telephone calls via HF/DSB ship/shore channels was no longer feas-
ible.
The next phase came in the early 1970s with the use of HF/SSB for the aero-
mobile service, which with frequency synthesisers gave access to a greater number
of frequencies, allowing HF/SSB channels to be allocated for airline company
operational control with licences for ground stations. PT Ts were upgrading ‘inter-
national and internal telephone trunk-dialling facilities to allow setting up calls
automatically.
Many executive jets use these facilities either via some airline HF/SSB ground
stations or those operated by some PPTs. On scheduled services many problems
remain, as the technical crew still must set up a call using equipment for ATC
channels. At the time of writing no major airline offers a telephone service to
passengers although there are facilities on the flight deck for telephone calls if
required by the crew.
In the USA, VHF/UHF ground mobile telephone services have been used to
support an aeromobile telephone service. Airphone on the 900 MHz band is now
installed in a number of aircraft operating internal services on heavily used routes,
although full area coverage of the USA is not yet provided.
Satellite telecommunication is bringing a new development into the public
correspondence field. With geostationary satellites (GEOS) spaced at 120
degrees longitude apart above the Equator, almost global coverage is available.
Satcom can exchange voice and routine data message traffic between aircraft and

200
 Bibliography

air traffic control. It can also provide data communication between airline company
headquarters and flight crew on topics from flight planning to bar uplift at the
next station. An essentially new aspect will be provision of a passenger telephone
service encompassing automatic charging and billing procedures through credit
card readers and direct international dialling over digitised speech between
aircraft and ground via the satellite. Plans are being evaluated for a small electronic
PBX with access from the passenger cabins.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennet, W. R, Davy, J. R. Data Transmission, McGraw-Hill.

Berlekamp E. R. et al., ‘Application of error control to Communications’, JEEE
Com. Mag., vol. 28, April 87.
Betts, J. A. Signal Processing, Modulation and Noise, Hodder and Stoughton.
Brown, T. T., ‘Transistor Multichannel VHF Com/Nav Receiver for Aircraft’, Proc.
IEE, No 7. July 63.
Burrows, M. L. ELF Communication Antennas, Peter Peregrinus, 1978.
Cowan, C. F. N., Grant, P. M., Adaptive Filters, Prentice-Hall.
Darnell, M. ‘Channel Evaluation Tech. for Dispersive Comm. Paths’, in
Communication Systems and Random Process Theory, ed. J. K. Skirwzynski, Sigthof
and Nordhoffs, 1978.
Evans, B. G. Satellite Communication Systems, Peter Peregrinus.
Lucky, R. W. et al., Principles of Data Communication, McGraw-Hill.
Markus, J., Zeluff, V. (eds), Electronics for Communication Engineers, McGraw-Hill.
Reed, I. S., Soloman G. ‘Polynomial Codes for Certain Finite Fields’. Journ. SJ.
Appl. Math., June 1960.
Rudge A. W et al., Handbook ofAntenna Design, Peter Peregrinus.
Sams, H. W. !.T.T. Reference Data for Radio Engineers.
Shannon, C. E. ‘Mathematical Theory of Communication’, Bell System Tech. Fournal,
vol. 38.
Terman, F.E., Pettit, J. M. Electronic Measurements, McGraw-Hill.
Weichbrod, J. ‘Problems of High Altitude Communication’, Journal Acoustical Society
of America, July, 46.
White, ‘Air-Ground Communications — History and Expectations’, [EEE
Transactions on Comms. May 1973.

201
 CHAPTER 9 AIRBORNE RADAR
JOHN A. C. KINNEAR MA; FIEE; FIERE,
Marketing Development Manager; GEC
Avionics Ltd

Mr Kinnear joined the research laboratories of Elliott Brothers in 1951, to work

on microwave antennas in the centimetric and millimetric bands. He carried out
the reduction into practice of the newly invented Elliott twist-reflecting
Cassegrainian antenna. This was followed by the development of new microwave
components and then the design of high grade instruments including automatic
equipments for microwave component and system testing and for antenna near-
field measurement. This led to the research and development of airborne radars
for airborne interception and high definition mapping andterrain following with
involvement in integrated concepts of overall avionics systems.

Since the first applications of radar in aircraft (see Chapter One), which were
directed to giving night fighters the ability to locate their quarry in non-visual
conditions, the versatility of radar has brought about its progressive involvement
in most of the roles of aviation, so that, today, radar makes a major contribution
in both civil and military operations.
In the civil aviation field, as a consequence of economic and logistic consid-
erations, the philosophy is for the major facilities to be ground-based, concentrated
along airways and terminal areas where they can provide services to large numbers
of aircraft in the high movement density areas. Commercial aircraft, in general,
carry only the specialised equipments which must necessarily operate where the
aircraft is at any moment, such as altimeters and the airborne elements of ground-
based systems such as secondary surveillance radar (SSR) transponders and
distance-measuring equipment (DME) interrogators.
Military aircraft, on the other hand, cannot expect assistance from ground-based
aids when operating in times of hostilities, and each aircraft must carry a compre-
hensive capability to ensure that it can perform its mission. Thus the modern attack
aircraft carries navigation attack and terrain-following radars which assist the
aircrew to follow a planned route to the target area and locate the target, while
flying fast and low, even in darkness and low visibility, to minimise their exposure
to air defences.
Airborne interception (AI) radar provides the means for the fighter aircraft to
locate intruding aircraft at many tens of miles enabling it to compute and fly an
intercept course and engage its quarry with radar-guided missiles from well beyond
visual range.
Specialist radars enable surveillance aircraft to search immense areas, or volumes
of airspace, providing a means to detect, and, in many cases, identify aircraft, ship-
ping, and land forces. The airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, for example can
maintain continuous watch over well over a million cubic miles of airspace,
detecting and tracking all aircraft movements within its coverage.
‘
202
 Propagation

At the other end of the scale, radar enables reconnaissance aircraft or pilotless
drones to scrutinise in close detail zones of particular tactical interest, relaying
back observations in real time.
Apart from its technical sophistication and complexity, the modern airborne
radar stands out for the number of specialist engineering disciplines reflected in
its design. Power engineering is associated with converting the aircraft primary
power supplies so as to satisfy the various internal voltage and power requirements
of the radar, particularly those of the transmitter which may require inputs of many
kVA. High voltage technology drives and supplies the high power transmitter tube;
r.f. frequency synthesis generates the microwave waveforms which will be amplified
in the r.f. power amplifier, and the local oscillator frequencies required in the
superheterodyne receivers. Also needed are: microwave technology for the
antenna, duplexing, and the receiver front-end; mechanical and servo-system
engineering for antenna stabilisation and scanning; digital data processing for
analysis of the signals and data handling as well as man/machine considerations
in relation to presentation and control. All of these must be blended with an
understanding of the properies of the environment in which the radar must perform
and an awareness of its operational tasks and its users’ operating procedures.
To understand how the radar is designed to play its part in the succesful
performance of the aircraft’s mission, the factors which affect the radar’s perform-
ance are examined first, both those which the designer can control and those over
which he has no control and must live with. Modern radars are extremely complex,
so the objective throughout is to outline the most significant aspects, without
involving the intricacies (Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1 Principles of radar

Radiation
Echoing
Transmitter
Propagation

Reception
Receiver

PROPAGATION

Once launched from the radar antenna, the radio energy radiates through the
atmosphere, concentrated within the radar beam. Following reflection by a radar
target a proportion of the energy re-radiates back to be captured by the receiving
antenna (usually the same antenna). During this propagation phase five significant
phenomena affect the radar performance.
203
 Airborne Radar

The first, ‘propagation loss’ is the reduction in power density of the radar trans-
mission as it radiates from the radar antenna towards a target, together with that
which it incurs, after reflection by the target, as it returns towards the radar’s
receiving antenna—assuming the intervening medium to be homogeneous and loss-
less.
The second is ‘atmospheric attenuation’; the absorption and scattering of energy
from the beam by constituents of the atmosphere through which it is propagating.
The third, ‘radar reflectivity’ relates to the effectiveness of the target in
reflecting energy back towards the radar’s receiving antenna, a function of the size,
shape and reflective efficiency of the target.
The fourth, ‘clutter’ results from undesired scattering back to the radar’s
receiving antenna from other objects within the radar beam, such as raindrops or,
in the case of low flying targets, terrain simultaneously within the radar beam.
The fifth factor, ‘shadowing’ results from the straight line propagation prop-
erties of high radio frequencies, as a result of which objects below the horizon,
or behind high ground, buildings or other substantial obstacles, will not be
detected.

Propagation loss In radiating towards a target the power density of the radar transmission falls off
according to the usual ‘inverse square of distance’ law of-radiation. The power
density of the wave incident on the target therefore is 1/(target range)’.
Some of the energy incident on the target is scattered back towards the radar
antenna; the power density of this re-radiated signal, in turn, falls off in propor-
tion to the inverse square of the distance from target to radar. Accordingly the
energy density at the radar antenna, after radiation to a target and back, falls off
as 1/(target range)*.

Atmospheric attenuation The radars being discussed all operate within the earth’s atmosphere, which is
constituted of varying amounts of gases and vapours. These absorb radio waves
and thus attenuate the radar beams in proportion to the distance they travel. The
absorption introduced by these mechanisms increases progressively towards higher
frequencies but with the superimposition of peaks resulting from molecular reso-
nances. This effect becomes significant at frequencies above about 1 GHz and may
dictate a choice of operating frequency which is a compromise between the-inter-
ests of long detection range and target resolution.

Radar reflectivity According to its role an airborne radar may direct its beam toward a ‘point’ target
which subtends only a small part of the radar beamwidth, or a ‘distributed’ target,
such as conurbations, woods or even the earth’s surface itself, which may fill a
substantial part of the beam.
An aircraft target is in the former class, and its effective reflectivity in a
particular direction is conventionally given in terms of the cross-sectional area of
a uniform, perfectly reflecting, sphere which would return an echo of the same
magnitude back towards the radar receiving antenna. As an indication of the
magnitude of the reflection, a fighter aircraft might have an echoing area varying
from a few square metres in the head-on or tail aspects to many square metres
broadside on.
This same yardstick is used as the measure for the overall reflection from
distributed targets, such as those on the earth’s surface and concentrations of
raindrops.
‘
204
 Functional elements of a radar
The nature of radar returns While an aircraft can be considered a point target from the viewpoint of its
dimensions in relation to the radar coverage and pulselength, it is large in relation
to the wavelength of the radiated waves. The overall echo from an aircraft results
from reflections from parts of the structure separated by many wavelengths, such
as the fuselage, engine intakes, wings, fins, etc. The magnitude of each of these
individual echoes will vary with the aspect of view, and because oftheir separation,
the relative phases of their several contributions will change rapidly with aspect
angle, so that their sum will fluctuate. As a consequence, as a target moves relative
to the radar, the radar echo will be subject to rapid fluctuations in amplitude,
known as ‘scintillation’ or ‘fading’, and the echo will appear to come from varying
positions around the aircraft, a phenomenon known as ‘glint’.
The fading and glint effects are common to most real-life radar targets, since
they are usually large compared with the wavelength and complex in shape, be they
aircraft, ships, man-made structures, or even terrain features or the sea surface.

Clutter Clutter is the term applied to returns from objects which reflect energy back to
the radar which may mask the returns from desired targets.
For example the radar return from an individual raindrop is minute and not
separately detectable by a radar, but the aggregated echoes from the myriad of
drops in a raincloud or area of precipitation are detectable and can be of such
a magnitude as to swamp other returns. These returns constitute ‘rain-clutter’.
Similarly, undesired echoes arising from the earth’s surface and objects on it, and
from the sea surface are termed ‘land-clutter’ and ‘sea-clutter’.

Atmospheric refraction In a uniform medium, radio waves at microwave frequencies propagate in straight
lines. However airborne radars operate in the atmosphere which varies in density
with altitude. Furthermore the earth’s surface over which the radars operate is
curved. As a consequence a radar beam directed downwards from an aircraft
towards the horizon experiences a progressively increasing refractive index which
causes it to be bent downwards. This has the effect of extending the onset of
horizon shadowing to beyond the geometric value. This effect is usually allowed
for in range calculations by assuming a scaled-up value for the earth’s radius using
a factor of between 5/4 and 4/3, as is the practice in surveying.
Another effect of atmospheric refraction occurs in the meteorological condition
known as an inversion. This occurs when warm air over the sea or land is overlaid
by colder, more dense air. This causes a radar phenomenon known as ‘ducting’
in which radar waves from a radar near the ground, entering the area of the
inversion at a grazing angle are bent down from the denser layer and may be
trapped or ‘ducted’ by being reflected successively at the earth’s surface and the
inversion, resulting, sometimes, in detection of targets beyond the horizon. The
radar from an aircraft incurs this phenomenon from the other side: a radar beam
approaching the earth at a shallow grazing angle is bent upwards by the density
gradient leaving areas where the beam may not penetrate so targets may be unde-
tectable.

FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF A RADAR

Having reviewed some of the factors affecting the capability of a radar, attention
can be turned to its various major constituents, their contribution to the capa-
bilities of the radar and the limitations and opportunities they offer in the overall
functional design of the radar.
205
 Airborne Radar

Fig. 9.2 Basic elements of an

airborne radar Antenna
Transmitter

Receiver
Scanner

Display
To aircraft systems
for flight control,
terrain following, etc.

The basic elements of a radar are shown in Fig. 9.2. Their functions are closely
inter-related in a way that is highly dependent on the overall purpose of the radar.
Each element has practical limitations to its capabilities, and these limitations,
in combination, dictate or restrict the optimisation of the design, and may ultimately
be reflected in limitations to the performance that can be achieved by the whole
system.
The transmitter is the source of the radio frequency energy by which the radar
performs its function. The mean power it generates may range from a few watts
in the case of an altimeter, to tens of kilowatts in an airborne early warning radar.
The transmitter power tubes usually require operating voltages of tens of kV.
The transmitter power supplies are bulky and heavy, and a considerable amount
of waste heat may need to be extracted. Thus the transmitter is usually a dominant
contributor to the overall size and weight of a radar.
Energy from the transmitter is fed through the transmitting antenna which
radiates it into space. Depending on the tasks for which the radar is designed the
antenna may concentrate the radiated energy into a cone (‘beam’) so that the
energy density radiated towards the target will be many times higher than if the
antenna radiated in all directions. By confining the radar energy into a beam the
antenna also defines the direction of any target that is illuminated by the beam.
In order that the radar beam may be moved so as to point in a desired direction
or to sweep through a required cOverage sector, the antenna may be carried on
a movable mounting, known as a ‘scanner’. This is usually equipped with control-
lable motors to direct the beam and electrical position sensors to indicate the
direction in which it is pointing. This platform may be controlled by position
signals from the aircraft’s attitude and position reference system to hold the beam
in a particular direction irrespective of aircraft manoeuvres (‘stabilisation’).
The radar energy, as it radiates to and from the target suffers a reduction in
strength as a result of interaction with the constituents of the atmosphere. Only
a small proportion of the energy in the beam is incident on an aircraft target since
its dimensions are small compared with the spread of the beam at operating ranges.
According to its size, shape and orientation the target scatters some small propor-
tion back towards the radar. Depending on the area of the receiving antenna some
part of this energy is collected and fed to the receiver where it is amplified and
“detected” to give a low frequency signal indicative of the presence of the target.
-

206
 Functional elements ofa radar

Some processing may be carried out on the signal to derive information about the
target, such as its range, range-rate and height.
The signal outputs may be passed on as electric signals to enable measurement
or control for such purposes as automatic landing, navigation, terrain following
or weapon priming and release. Alternatively they may provide information for
presentation to the crew on an instrument or display or may be transmitted over
a data link to another aircraft or the ground.
In looking at the individual parts of a radar in closer detail it is convenient to
start by considering the receiver, because it is here that the fundamental limitation
to the radar’s ability to detect the smallest echo signals resides. This limit is set
by the ‘noise’ power inherent in the early stages of the receiver, caused by thermal
agitation.

Receiver noise level The level of the noise power in the receiver is determined by the product of four
terms.
The first, the “Boltzmann constant’ is a fundamental physical constant with a
value of 1.38 x 10773 °K.
The second is the ‘noise temperature’, the equivalent temperature of the
receiver, arising from the effective temperature of the various receiver components
contributing to the overall noise level.
The third ‘noise bandwidth’ is the receiver frequency bandwidth, involved
because thermal noise power is spread uniformly throughout the whole frequency
spectrum and therefore the wider the receiver bandwidth the more noise power
is accepted.
The final term is the receiver noise factor’ a multiplier which is a measure of
how closely the receiver circuits approach the theoretical level of noise.
Of these factors, the Boltzmann constant is, ipso facto, fixed as far as the radar
designer is concerned. The minimum practical receiver bandwidth is imposed on
him implicitly by system requirements. Noise temperature is determined by the
working temperature of the components contributing to the system noise. The
designer can select the configuration and components of his receiver to achieve
a good noise factor for example, by including a low noise amplifier at the front-
end, which by amplifying the received signals, makes the contributions of the
succeeding stages proportionately less significant.
If circumstances permit, the designer may elect to provide cooling to reduce the
temperature of the most critical contributors, such as the microwave amplifier, but
frequently this is not possible or economic.
Before the parametric amplifier came along the major contributor to receiver
noise was the microwave superheterodyne mixer. Mixer noise factors have fallen
progressively from, for example 100:1 (20 decibels) in the 10 GHz pulse radars of
the 1940s and 1950s to around 5:1 (6 to 7 decibels) in present day systems. By
preceding the mixer by a parametric amplifier these figures can be approximately
halved.
In the receiver of a pulsed radar the best signal-to-noise ratio is obtained when
its bandwidth is matched to the pulselength. A bandwidth slightly greater than the
reciprocal of the pulselength has been found to be optimum; for example, for a
pulselength of 1 microsecond a bandwidth of about 1.2 GHz, for 0.2 microsecond
a bandwidth of 6 GHz. In a pulse Doppler radar where the Doppler signals of
individual targets are separated out in a narrow band frequency analyser, noise
bandwiths of a few hundred Hertz will be obtained.

207
 Airborne Radar

Signal to noise ratio The thermal noise level, after detection in the receiver, has a randomly fluctuating
value varying from instant to instant. As has already been mentioned the signal
from a target is also subject to fluctuation a8 a result of fading. The ratio of the
signal to the noise power at any moment is therefore varying in a complicated
manner, so that the radar’s ability to distinguish the target return can only be
expressed in terms of a probability that any pulse received from a target will exceed
the instantaneous noise by any chosen margin. This margin has to be carefully
chosen. A threshold level is set within this margin. Since the noise signal is random
there is always some probability, however small, of the noise exceeding the
threshold, and being detected as a ‘false alarm’. If the threshold is set too low this
probability may be uncomfortably high; if it is too high there may be too great a
probability that the target echo may not exceed the threshold and the target will
go undetected. The objective of the radar designer is to set a threshold at which
the probability of a false alarm is negligible and at the same time to adopt values
for the significant radar parameters, for example antenna size, transmitter power,
etc., to achieve an adequate signal from the stipulated target at the maximum design
range. Then, because of the 1/range* law the signal from a target will rise rapidly
as it approaches from maximum range and the probability of detection will
rise also.
In the case of a simple pulse radar where the radar output is shown as bright-
ups directly on a cathode ray tube display the threshold is applied by adjusting
the video gain until the noise peaks only just paint on the screen with an accept-
able probability; the signals, which are stronger will then paint with a greater
probability. In more sophisticated radars the signal is gated electronically in the
signal processing.
Because the received signal from a target increases rapidly with the closeness
of the target because of the fourth power relationship with range, the dynamic
range required of the receiver is immense. To avoid overloading, it is common in
low p.r.f. radars to introduce a synchronised or ‘swept’ gain control in the early
stages of the receiver amplifier to introduce a high attenuation immediately after
each pulse is transmitted, reducing rapidly at such a rate as to compensate for the
I/range* fall off. This is obviously not possible in a radar with range ambiguity
since returns from different ranges resulting from different transmitted pulses will
be intermingled. The receivers for medium and high p.r.f. radars, therefore, need
to be specially designed to handle the very large dynamic ranges encountered.

Signal Integration The effective signal-to-noise level can be improved if successive pulses from a
target can be summed (integrated) before thresholding. The number of pulses
which can be integrated effectively is limited by the rate at which the target echo
is fading and the length of time that the radar beam illuminates the target. Under
these circumstances the signal at the target is substantially invariant while the noise
signal is varying randomly.
If the integration is performed before detection, while both the phase and
amplitude of the signals can be taken into account ‘coherent integration’ is poss-
ible, by which the signal-to-noise ratio is increased directly as the number of
pulses integrated. If the integration is performed post-detection and/or takes no
account of signal phase, the integration is ‘non-coherent’, and the signal-to-noise
is improved only in proportion to the square root of the number of pulses.
The signal-to-noise required to give the desired probability of detection with
an acceptable false alarm rate, taking into account the benefits of any integration,
determines the minimum signal levels that must reach the receiver from the radar
’

208
 The antenna

antenna, and the designer must set the radar parameters, such as antenna gain and
transmitter power to achieve these values.

Range resolution The smallest increment in range at which the echoes from two point targets can
be separately resolved in a pulse radar is when they are separated by one half of
a spatial pulselength — the distance that the radar waves travel in the duration of
one pulse — for this is the separation at which a pulse received from the nearer
target will have just finished before the leading edge of the pulse from the further
target arrives,
From this is derived the concept of dividing the distance out to the maximum
range of the radar into ‘range cells’, each of a length equivalent to one half the
spatial pulselength. In simple radars these merely represent the resolvable range
elements, but in the more sophisticated radars the returns in each cell are gated
and stored for processing or analysis and display.

Amplification and detection To raise the minute incoming signals to a level at which detection can be
performed efficiently they need first to be amplified. Microwave amplifiers have
only been available for the present generation of radars; even now they are a rela-
tively bulky and expensive way of obtaining amplification and are, therefore, only
used as pre-amplifiers to achieve low noise factors. The incoming microwave
signals are therefore converted to a lower radio frequency convenient for efficient
amplification (known as an Intermediate Frequency or IF) by beating them with
a locally generated microwave signal (local oscillator signal) having a frequency
differing from the transmitted frequency by the IF. The difference product which
is separated and amplified prior to detection, carries the pulse envelope and the
relative phase of the received signal.
The majority of low p.r.f. radars have used Magnetron transmitter tubes, the
output of which is not highly stable in frequency. The local oscillator signal has
usually been provided by a low power Reflex Klystron oscillator, whose frequency
has to be controlled by a frequency discriminator/automatic frequency control
loop-to ensure that its output frequency remains at the correct difference from the
transmission. Now, most modern Pulse Doppler radars are based on power ampli-
fier tube transmitters driven by highly stable crystal controlled frequency synthes-
isers which also provide local oscillator outputs precisely related to the
transmission in both frequency and phase.

THE ANTENNA

Virtually all airborne radars employ the same antenna for both transmission and
reception, because the size and aerodynamic shape of an aircraft often make it
difficult to find even one location sufficiently large and with a clear view for the
radar to cover the required aspects.
The purpose of the radar antenna is to launch the radar transmission efficiently
into space within the required coverage zone, and to ‘collect’ the energy incident
on it by reflection from any targets within the coverage. At the same time, the
antenna is usually designed to give a degree of directivity to the transmitted energy,
confining it as a beam of radiation. This serves two valuable purposes; by concen-
trating the radiated energy within a narrow cone, the density of energy incident
on targets is increased, the degree of concentration being termed the antenna
‘gain’. At the same time the narrowness of the beam enables the direction of a
target returning energy to the radar to be more precisely determined.
209
 Airborne Radar

The formation of the beam is a wave-diffraction effect, and the degree to which
an antenna of a particular size can concentrate the energy, and therefore the
beamwidth, is a function of the dimensions of the antenna aperture measured in
wavelengths — the greater the aperture and/or the shorter the wavelength, the
narrower the beam. Thus, for example, an antenna 0.9 metres in diameter operating
at 10 GHz (3 cm wavelength) having an aperture width of 30 wavelengths, would
have the same beamwidth as a 3 metre antenna operating at 3 GHz (10 cm wave-
length).
It is commonly found convenient to define an antenna by its dimensions in two
orthogonal planes, one at least of which runs through an axis of symmetry, referred
to as the azimuth and elevation planes.
At any chosen operating frequency, the concentration of the beam in the
azimuth plane is inversely proportional to the beamwidth and hence directly to the
azimuth plane dimension of the antenna; the concentration in the elevation plane
varies directly as the elevation dimension. Consequently the overall concentration
of energy is proportional to the product of azimuth and elevation dimensions. In
the most common case, that of a circular antenna, the antenna gain is thus a direct
function of the square of the diameter and, therefore, proportional to the aperture
area of the antenna. The power incident on a target in the beam and reflected
back to the radar antenna is proportional to the antenna gain and the proportion
of this which is collected by the radar is proportional to the aperture area of the
antenna. Consequently the received power, and hence the ability of the radar to
detect the target, is directly proportional to the fourth power of the antenna
diameter. For this reason antenna size is a very significant parameter in the design
of a radar, and it is usually necessary to achieve the largest possible aerial in an
aircraft.
For a chosen dimension of antenna, the beamwidth in each plane varies directly
with wavelength and the antenna gain varies inversely as the square of the wave-
length. The wavelength is therefore a strong factor influencing the detection capa-
bility of a radar and the highest practical frequency is usually adopted. Because
propagation effects cause the path loss to increase with frequency a compromise
has to be struck in relation to the particular operational requirements for the radar.
At the time of the first developments of radar it was already possible to draw
on antenna technology which had been established for radio communications and
broadcasting.
The design concepts for both omnidirectional antennas and directional arrays
existed at the longer wavelengths used for the first surveillance radars. As the
drive towards equipments operating at shorter wavelengths yielded oscillators and
components in the decimetric and centimetric wavebands there were techniques
which could be drawn on and extended. End-fire and broadside arrays of radiating
elements were carried down into the decimetric waveband and used in the first
airborne radars. When operation in the centimetric wavebands became possible,
and the number of elemental radiators in an antenna of practical dimensions
became inconveniently high, the concept was adopted of the parabolic reflector
fed by a small primary feed at its focus. This practice was already established for
sound ranging, in which the acoustic wavelengths involved also included centi-
metric wavelengths. Except for a few systems operating in the lower frequency
bands arrays of dipoles are little used today.
The parabolic reflector with focal plane feeds has been developed in a number
of forms and has been extensively used in airborne radars.
In recent years planar slotted waveguide arrays have come into wide use because
210
 The antenna

of their higher efficiency and the better control they allow the designer in the
characteristics of the radiated beam pattern.
Current developments are aimed at exploiting progress in microwave semicon-
ductors and integrated circuits, with the aid of fast data processing, to make planar
arrays where each radiating element is integrated with its own individual miniature
transmitter, duplexer, phase-shifter and receiver, the necessary phase control to
point and scan the beam or beams being controlled by computer. The multiplicity
of elements allows a high mean power to be achieved despite the low r.f. power
limitations of individual semiconductor devices. The particular benefit of these
techniques will be the possibility of forming more than one beam simultaneously, the
speed at which the beam can be moved, and fault tolerance because failure of a
few random elements will have little effect on the overall performance.
The ‘pipe dream’ for the future is conformal arrays in which the individual
elements of the array are not planar, but are contained in the natural surface
contours of the aircraft. The benefits of this to the aircraft designer appear
considerable, but the technical problems of implementation are formidable, except
in the simplest of situations.

Antenna characteristics The simplest antenna is the ‘dipole’ which provides an omnidirectional radiation
pattern in its equatorial plane and a figure-of eight in the polar plane. A number
of dipoles can be positioned in line which, when fed with r.f. energy in appropriate
phase, form a narrower beam along the line of the elements. Much greater direc-
tivity can be achieved by arrays placed broadside to the direction of the required
beam and fed in the same phase.
Dipole arrays became mechanically much more difficult to implement when
operating wavelengths moved into the centimetric and millimetric wavebands. Much
simpler was the expedient of locating a single dipole at the focus of a parabolic
reflector. By this means antennas of any desired aperture size could be achieved
without greater complexity.
Because waveguides became the preferred method of transmission of microwave
energy and signals, the dipole fed by coaxial cable gave way first to a dipole
energised from the waveguide, then to direct radiation from the waveguide as the
method of illuminating the parabolic reflector. By flaring or narrowing the extremity
of the waveguide in one or both dimensions the angular spread of the radiated
energy could be varied and the simplest and most used form of primary feeder,
the ‘waveguide horn’ was devised. The use of a horn at the focus of the paraboloid
allows the spread of energy across the aperture of the paraboloid to be adjusted
to match its size.
The objective of the radar designer is to feed the focusing reflector in such
a manner that the reflected radiation leaving the aperture of the antenna is at a
uniform phase. This aperture distribution is transformed by the diffraction process
operating in the transition region known as the ‘near field’ into a beam pattern
in the ‘far field’. The diffraction process, however, produces not just a single beam
but also a pattern of lesser beams surrounding the desired ‘main beam’, and known
as ‘sidelobes’. As well as taking some of the energy that should go into the main
beam, these sidelobes can be detrimental to the operation of the radar by receiving
spurious reflection from targets and clutter echoes from the ground (Fig. 9.3).
The sidelobes fall off in magnitude, away from the main beam and become
negligible in their effect, but in practice there is usually a random pattern of low
level lobes at all angles caused by tolerances and imperfections in the antenna.
The main beam is at its narrowest and the antenna gain at its highest when the
211
 Airborne Radar

Fig. 9.3 Antennas — centre- Schematic

fed and off-set
Centre Fed Dish eg

x
x

slecsten, <— Support ne

arabolic 5
dish
Feedhorn wa
> M,
if
Waveguide i

Offset Fed Dish

— — 4— - >— —

‘
\
Parabolic x
dish \
IN
\ \

— — — |+ —»>—_— —
ae
SOE Feed Horn 5gate)

illumination provides a uniform power density over all the antenna aperture.
However this condition also generates the highest level of sidelobes, and, anyway,
is impossible to implement from a feed-horn at the focus. A practical arrangement
usually adopted is to size the feed-horn so that the illumination falls by about 10
to 1 between the centre of the parabola and its edges. This gives a satisfactory
compromise between reduction in gain and broadening of the beamwidth, the
sidelobe levels, and the proportion of the energy from the feed-horn lost by falling
outside the edges of the reflector — so called ‘spillover’.
A shortcoming of the parabolic dish and feed type of antenna is that the feed
at the focus and the waveguide feeding it, together with any supports, block a part
of the aperture area by intruding into the outgoing beam. This causes a deteri-
oration in the performance and an increase in the level of the sidelobes.
A number of configurations have been devised to counter this difficulty. These
include the microwave Cassegrain antenna and offset feeding of the antenna (Fig.
9.4).
Many of the latest generation radars employ a planar slotted array antenna (Fig.
9.4) comprising a flat conducting plate through the front of which lines of resonant
slots have been cut, each coupling with waveguides on the back of the plate. The
manner of feeding and coupling energy through each individual slot enables the
designer to arrange the distribution of radiation over the face of the plate, which
constitutes the aperture of the antenna. He thereby controls the antenna gain and
beamwidth, and the levels of the sidelobes to suit the purposes of any application.
An additional benefit of the planar array is that no energy is lost by spillover and
a higher efficiency and antenna gain can be achieved.

Radar coverage There is a range of ways in which a radar can provide coverage of a desired zone
of sky. At its simplest a radar beamwidth can be chosen which can be directed
212
 The antenna

Fig. 9.4 Antennas —

Cassegrain
Cassegrain and
planar slotted array
NS —— Parabolic dish ae
aS SS
‘ —<+7>—
a é Hyperbolic Ig ae
coal sub-reflector <s
n”

a 4
Feedhorn Vi

Planar slotted array

Jo
ie
Waveguide sae
feeds 5
—
S

to cover the whole of the zone required. This is the only practical approach in
some types of radar, including sideways looking radars and altimeters. For search
and surveillance radars however this has two disadvantages — that the gain of the
antenna is low, and that the direction of a target within the beam cannot be
accurately measured. By using an antenna with a narrow beam the gain and direc-
tivity are increased but in order to maintain coverage the antenna beam must be
‘scanned’ to cover the requisite zone. This results in a target only being illumi-
nated for a part of the time, while the beam is passing over it.
If the transmission is pulsed there are two restrictions on the rate at which the
radar beam can scan the coverage zone. First, if the pulse is long the beam must
not sweep through the target in less than the pulse duration or else the reflected
power will be reduced; second, the beam must remain on a target at maximum range
for at least long enough for the desired number of pulses to transit to the target
and return, or else the antenna will not be ‘looking at’ the target when the echo
arrives.
Another consideration is that the pattern of scanning of the coverage zone must
be repeated at such a rate that a target does not intrude too far into the cover-
age zone before it is detected. Thereafter it must continue to be ‘plotted’ at
frequent enough intervals for its course to be tracked without gaps and confusion
with other nearby detections.
Radars employing multiple p.r-f.’s such as are used to eliminate range ambiguities
require the dwell to be sufficient to cover fully the transmission and reception of
a complete sequence of p.r.f. bursts.

Monopulse In the early development of radar the accuracy of locating a target was determined
by the width of the radar beam, but a greater accuracy in angular measurement
was clearly desirable. A technique, known as ‘lobing’ was devised to measure the
angular position more accurately by a differential method. The radar beam was
213
 Airborne Radar

Fig. 9.5 Monopulse ground S— Upper beam

ranging

Ds ~ \
—~ /
= /
a SLee a

Signal in we

Upper beam .

Lower beam

Difference signal
(lower-upper)

stepped each side of the coarsely determined bearing so that the signal was
received alternately on the opposite slopes of the antenna beam. By comparing the
strength of signal received on each flank of the beam, position could be measured
more accurately, as long as the signal was sufficiently strong.
In principle this offered an improvement in accuracy, but in practice if the signal
was subject to any fading between the two positions the measurement was spurious.
The monopulse technique was developed to surmount this limitation. This
employs an antenna generating two overlapping beams with an angular separation.
The signals received by each beam on each pulse are combined in a microwave
receiver giving ‘sum’ and ‘difference’ outputs. The sum channel is used for trans-
mission and, on reception, for detection and ranging. The difference channel
signal is at a minimum on the radar axis and rises each side as the signal from one
of the two beams predominates. By comparing the phase and amplitude of the
difference channel signal with those of the sum channel signal the difference
channel signal is normalised and gives a measure of the deviation and its direction.
The normalised difference channel signal is linear over most of the beam overlap
and can be used to measure the off-boresight angle of a target or can provide an
error signal to servo the antenna direction to the target.
According to the role of a radar the monopulse technique may be applied in
either the azimuth or elevation plane of the antenna, or by use of a four beam
cluster, in both planes.

Monopulse ground ranging So far the use of the monopulse technique to determine more accurately the
position of an airborne target has been considered. The same technique can be
used to determine the direction of a point target on land or on the sea, so long
as the echoes from the surrounding terrain (clutter) are very much smaller than
those from the target.
In the ground ranging mode the method is applied in an inverse manner. The
radar boresight is directed at a point on the ground whose range is to be deter-
mined. Because of the low incidence a simple pencil beam would illuminate a very
long strip of ground and echoes from within this would be received from many
214
 The transmitter

pulselengths so range measurement will be inaccurate.

Accurate ranging is possible using elevation plane monopulse, in the manner
indicated in Fig. 9.5. The method utilises the fact that the signals received from
the upper and lower beams have opposite phases when compared with the sum
channel signals from the same range elements.
After the transmission of each pulse, echoes are received initially more strongly
in the lower beam, according to the range at which they are reflected. Then the
response in the upper beam grows steadily until, at the boresight range it is equal
to that in the lower beam, at which time the difference channel signal reduces to
zero then starts to grow with opposite sign. Various circuit techniques have been
devised to sense the moment of crossover and thence to determine the range.

THE TRANSMITTER

Early radars used thermionic amplifier tubes for the generation of their r.f. power.
These have an upper frequency limit to their operation, and the drive to achieve
higher frequencies called for new devices. Two of these, in particular the Klystron
and the Magnetron, enabled the centrimetric wavebands to be opened up.
The klystron amplifier consisted of two or more cavities, resonant at, or tuned
to, the operating frequency, spaced along the axis of the tube.
An electron gun, like that of a cathode ray tube, generated a beam of electrons,
focused and accelerated by high voltages applied to the electrodes of the gun
and directed along the axis and through the successive cavities. A small r.f. signal,
at the resonant frequency, coupled into the first cavity causes bunching of the
electrons passing through the cavity. This bunched beam then interacts with the
next cavity giving up some of its beam energy resulting in an amplified signal in
the cavity. Power is coupled out of the final cavity. Klystrons have been designed
to deliver up to tens of kilowatts.
A disadvantage of the klystron is the very high voltages required for the
generation, focusing and acceleration of the electron beam.
A low power oscillator variant, the reflex klystron has found extensive use in
radar receivers to generate the local oscillator signals required for superhetero-
dyne operation.
The cavity magnetron, when it came along in 1940, was a much simpler device.
It comprised a metal block into which were cut a number of resonant cavities
arranged in a ring around a central cylindrical cavity, to which each was coupled
by a slot in the common wall. A thermionic cathode was located along the axis of
the cylinder, and the block was located between the poles of a powerful magnet,
so that the field was directed along the axis. The block constituted the anode and
for operation was raised to a high voltage with respect to the cathode.
Electrons emitted from the cathode were accelerated towards the anode by its
high potential. However they were deflected by the magnetic field into a curved
path. With the correct potential and magnetic field the curved path of the electrons
past slots in the cavities coupled energy from the moving electron beam into the
cavities and oscillations were built up. A coupling out of the cavities provided the
microwave power.
The only voltage needed for this type of oscillator is that applied to the anode
block, so that it is much simpler to use than the klystron. In pulse radars this
voltage is applied as a short high-voltage pulse delivered to the tube by a
modulator unit, the triggering of which is controlled, at the required pulse
repetition frequency, by a synchroniser unit.
215
 Airborne Radar

This is a central master timing unit which also provides correctly related timing
pulses for other purposes, such as the ranging circuits and display timebases. aie
modulator is a very high power, high voltage, fast switching device and modulator
design has always been a challenging and difficult task.
A magnetron only bursts into oscillation when the voltage pulse applied to the
anode block has brought its potential above a critical level. As a consequence the
phase of the r.f. output is completely random from pulse to pulse, and the exact
frequency is affected by the block temperature and the effects of reflections in
the waveguides that couple it to the duplexer and antenna.
It is, therefore, not suited as the power source for coherent radars where it is
necessary to compare the phase and frequency of returning pulses with a reference
signal consistent with the original transmission.
For coherent radars the synchroniser and medulator of the pulse radar give
place to a master waveform generator, which has already been described in
connection with the receiver, and a power amplifier.
The travelling wave tube comprises an electron beam gun which produces and
accelerates an electron beam along the axis of the device which is encompassed
by a concentric solenoid or permanent magnet system producing a field along the
axis. This constrains the electron beam, while it passes along the centre of a ‘slow
wave’ structure. This is the equivalent of a loaded transmission line and is used
to propagate the small input signal along the structure. The electron beam, as, it
passes along the tube, interacts with the field due to the input wave causing
progressive bunching of the electrons in the beam and the abstracting of energy
from the beam to the wave as it passes through the structure. The wave energy
is coupled out of the tube at the end of the structure to provide the output power.

TYPES OF RADAR

Primary & secondary In the normal applications of radar, the system transmits a beam of r.f. energy and
subsequently receives the minute proportion of this energy which has been echoed
back to it by the target. This is referred to as primary radar.
In the early days of radar, when the need was seen to distinguish ‘friendly’
aircraft from ‘hostiles’, the idea was conceived of carrying a small
receiver/transmitter (transponder) on all friendly aircraft, which, on detecting
illumination by radiation from a radar beam, would transmit a signal back to the
radar. Since this would be much larger than the reflected signal the target would
be distinguished as friendly.
This concept of a responding transmitter on the target aircraft has evolved into
one in which the radar transmission comprises a characteristic group of pulses
recognisable to the transponder in the target aircraft which then responds after
a predetermined precise interval with a coded train of pulses, which identifies
and/or provides information about the aircraft. This is known as secondary radar.

Monostatic, bistatic & In most radars the same antenna and feed system is used for both transmission and
multistatic reception, a form known as ‘monostatic’.
In the military context this has the weakness that an enemy with the ability to
direction-find on the transmissions can direct counter-measures against the radar,
either by physical attack or by electronic jamming. This can be obviated if the
transmitter is in a separate aircraft (or location) from the receiver(s) which can be
totally passive so that the enemy is unable to direct his counter-measures at them.
216 -
 Types ofradar

This is termed bistatic in the case of one receiver vehicle or site and multistatic
if there are more (see also Chapter Ten).
The semi-active radar guided weapon is a simple example of bistatic operation
as it carries only a radar receiver and homes on radiation scattered by the target
as a result of illumination by the radar in its launch aircraft.
There are formidable technical problems associated with ensuring simultaneous
coverage of the target by both the transmitting and receiving beams from separate
surveillance or fighter aircraft, and with determining target range passively at the
receiving aircraft, but modern fast data processing offers the prospect of achieving
this.
It is interesting that the earliest British airborne radar attempt, carried out in
December 1936, was bistatic, with the transmitter on the ground and the receiver
in a Heyford aircraft. (see Fig. 1.4).
The term bistatic is usually reserved for the case when the receiving system is
at a remote position from the transmitter or is separately mobile, as distinct from
two antenna radars which have separate antennas for transmission and reception.

Continuous wave (CW) The earliest indications of the potential of radio transmissions to detect aircraft
and pulsed radar were the observations of fluctuating signals of broadcast radio waves received in
sensitive receivers when aircraft passed overhead, an occurence commonplace
today as the ‘jittering’ of the TV picture seen as an aircraft flies nearby.
The receipt of a return from a target illuminated by a continuous transmission
of this type shows the presence of a target, it can indicate direction if the trans-
mission is confined to a narrow beam, but gives no measurement of distance unless
several separately located receivers are positioned so as to make triangulation poss-
ible.
To measure range directly from a single location use is made of the fact that
the radio energy travels at the speed of light, approximately 300,000 Km per
second. The time taken for the radar beam to travel to the target and return is
measured: since the wave must travel the path in two directions the range will
correspond to 150,000 times the transit time or, conversely, the delay will be
roughly 7 microseconds for each kilometer distance.
In order to measure the echo delay it is necessary to ‘tag’ the transmitted signal
in some way so that the delay between the transmission of an identifiable epoch
of radiation and its subsequent moment of reception can be determined. The most
commonly used method of doing this has been to break the transmission into short
pulses. The rate at which successive pulses are generated (the pulse repetition
frequency or p.r.f) is usually arranged so that the next pulse is not radiated before
the previous pulse has had time to return from the maximum distance to which the
radar is effective. Otherwise, echoes from targets at longer ranges will overlap
those from nearby and the range measurements will be ‘ambiguous’. Radars which
are unambiguous in range are termed ‘low-p.r.f.’ radars.
As an example a low-p.r.f. radar with a maximum range of 100 Km will receive
signals for up to 667 microseconds after each transmitted pulse. The pulse
repetition rate cannot, therefore, be greater than 1500 pulses per second.
When a target is in the beam of a pulsed radar each pulse will illuminate it for
the duration of the pulselength and the echo will have this duration. In general
the shorter the pulselength the more precisely the range of the target can be
determined and the finer the resolution of the separation of the echoes of adjacent
targets, will be. However the smaller the pulse duration as a proportion of the
interpulse interval the’ lower is the duty cycle of the transmitter and the higher
217
 Airborne R adar

the peak power in relation to the mean power. As a consequence low-p.r.f. radars
have largely depended on the use of magnetron transmitter tubes, since these are
capable of generating short pulses of very high peak power. Ultimately the limit
is set at which breakdown occurs within the waveguide circuits used to connect
the transmitter valve to the antenna. Since the waveguide dimensions are related
to the wavelength the available transmitter power falls off with increasing
frequency. Typically, peak powers of, at most, one or two megawatts are available
in radars operating at about 3 GHz and + Megawatts in those operating at
10 GHz. In typical applications these high power levels are associated with p.r.f.’s
of about 400 p.p.s. so that the mean power levels are only a few hundred watts.
The performance of a radar is a complicated consequence of the values assigned
to a number of interacting parameters, which include such factors as how long the
radar beam dwells on the target as it scans through its coverage zone, how many
pulses are transmitted in this interval, etc. When values have been determined for
these, the range at which a radar can detect a target is, broadly speaking, related
to the mean power transmitted. Since the mean power of a low-p.r.f. radar is
determined by the maximum peak power and by the p.r-f. (itself a consequence of
the maximum effective range) a limit is set to the radar’s detection performance.
One approach used to surmount these limitations has been to operate at a higher
p.r.f. and to accept the added complexities of introducing a means of resolving the
ensuing range ambiguities by logical processing of the received signals, usually
achieved by using controlled sequential variation of the p.r.f. and the correlation
of the timing of the received pulses arising from each pulse interval. Radars which
are ambiguous in range are termed medium p.r-f. or high p.r.f. radars. The distinc-
tion is explained in a later section.
An alternative method is to employ frequency modulation of the transmitted
radiation instead of pulse modulation. For this the frequency of the transmission
is swept repetitively over a period longer than that of the maximum path delay. As
a consequence, signals received back at the receiver are at a different frequency
from that being transmitted at that instant, and, by comparing the frequencies in
the receiver, the range of the target can be determined. If, however, the target
is moving towards or away from the radar this motion will superimpose a Doppler
frequency shift upon the echo. These shifts can be calculated out by employing
upward and downward shifts.
Unfortunately one of the difficulties inherent in a CW radar is that of protecting
the receiver from overloading by breakthrough of power from the transmitter. This
is no problem in low-power radars such as can be used for radar altimeters and
airborne Doppler navigators, while in ground radars dual separated antennas can
be used for transmission and reception. However in an aircraft there is no possi-
bility of duplicating the large aerials needed to achieve the performance of an
interception or airborne early warning radar, nor has it proved possible to achieve
satisfactory duplexing devices akin to the duplexing switches used in pulse radars.
Consequently pure CW radars have not found succesful application in high power
airborne radars.

PULSE DOPPLER

In certain circumstances, for example, when a radar is looking for low flying
aircraft, the radar beam or its sidelobes may strike the ground around the same
range as the target. Because of the very large area of the surface which is illu-
minated the returned clutter echoes may be many times larger than the target echo
’
218
 Civil aviation applications

and obscure it. To overcome this disability, techniques are employed which
distinguish the signals from a moving target from those from the stationary terrain
around it, by virtue of the different Doppler frequency shifts the motion imposes
on the radar signals. Radars using these techniques are known as ‘pulse Doppler’
radars.
These make use of the fact that when a target moving towards the radar is
illuminated by the radar waves, the signal returned to the radar in each successive
epoch originates from a slightly nearer point than its predecessor and therefore
returns in a slightly shorter time. As a consequence, more cycles of the wave reach
the radar in any second than would have been the case if the target had been
stationary; this is perceived as an increase in the frequency of the wave. If the
target was receding the frequency would be shifted downwards.
The frequency differences are quite small; for example 30 Hz for each kilometre
per hour of closing speed at 10 GHz (10,000,000 Hz), so that to enable them to
be measured the radar needs a transmitter with a very stable and pure output which
can provide an accurate frequency reference against which the target returns can
be related after the time delay of propagation to the target and back. Early
coherent radars employed a method known as COHO/STALO (COHerent
Oscillator/STAble Local Oscillator). For this method a sample of the transmitter
output was used to reset accurately the frequency of the receiver local oscillator
on each successive pulse, this having a sufficiently high stability to retain the
frequency throughout the propagation interval.
With the development of semiconductors capable of operating into the micro-
wave band, this method has been superseded by methods based on a master
frequency synthesiser. Oscillations generated in crystal-controlled oscillators at
convenient radio frequencies are stepped-up by a succession of harmonic gener-
ation and frequency mixing (summing or differencing) to generate stable microwave
signals for amplification in a microwave power amplifier (occasionally a klystron
amplifier, but more often a travelling wave tube), and correctly related local oscil-
lator signals for the purposes of the receiver.

CIVIL AVIATION APPLICATIONS

Weather radar The en route phase of commercial aircraft operations is a regime of comparatively
low risk. The major avoidable hazard in this phase of flight is the inadvertent
intrusion too near to the core of a storm. Whereas in many applications the reflec-
tion of substantial echoes by areas of rainfall is detrimental to the performance
of a pulse radar, this same phenomenon is turned to advantage in the weather
radar. This is designed specifically to distinguish these echoes and by scanning
a wide sector ahead of the aircraft, sufficient to indicate the extent of a storm,
enabling a safe path to be selected roundor through it.
The scattering of radio waves by raindrops becomes greater at higher frequen-
cies, as the wavelength gets nearer the dimensions of the drops. However, the
result of using too high a frequency can be massive reflections from the near face
of the rainstorm, but with all the energy being scattered and absorbed rapidly, the
regions behind are shadowed and the storm core may be undetected. A compromise
between adequate echoes, resolution and position accuracy, on one hand, and
penetration of rainfall zones, on the other, is the aim. The compromise results in
the use of frequencies around 5-10 GHz, the latter invariably being used in the
smaller equipments used in General Aviation aircraft.
219
 Airborne Radar

The earlier generations of weather radar identified areas of rainfall to the

aircrew as patches of bright-up on a plan position CRT display. In more modern
radars signal processing is introduced to highlight zones where there is a sharp
gradient of rainfall rate, to give a better indication of the most severe conditions
in the storm. Alternatively the introduction of colour TV tubes allows the
‘synthetic colour’ presentation of bands of different rainfall intensity.

Radar altimeters Barometric altimeters are extensively used in the flight operations of both civil and
military aircraft. They have the disadvantage that they do not measure altitude
directly, but deduce it from local atmospheric pressure, as a result of which their
height readings may be inexact due to variability in atmospheric conditions and
errors and inaccuracies in their datum settings.
While these deviations are not, in general, serious at the higher altitudes, they
are of crucial importance at low altitudes where terrain clearance and landing are
concerned. Radars, mounted in aircraft and looking vertically downwards, provide
a means of height measurement directly referenced to the land or sea surface and
capable of sufficient accuracy to control aircraft automatically to a safe touchdown.
Typically they are designed for the lower altitude regime, usually up to a maximum
of 2000 or, perhaps, 5000 feet.
Both pulse and CW methods have been applied to altimetry. Because of the
difficulty of switching fast enough between transmit and receive the earlier alti-
meters adopted CW using frequency modulation for distance measurement.
Because the land and sea surfaces have a very high reflectivity at near-normal
incidence, altimeters can operate at low power levels, typically around 1 watt
radiated.
Because of the short ranges involved the higher frequencies can be employed
and frequencies in the region of 16 GHz have been allocated for this purpose.
Height must be measured in the presence of aircraft manoeuvre and to avoid
the expense and complication of providing stabilised mountings the antennas are
designed to have wide beamwidths, sufficient to encompass the necessary
manoeuvre angles in pitch and roll.
Because the antennas are small it is possible to solve the problems of duplexing
by employing separate antennas for transmission and reception, hard-mounted in
the bottom of the fuselage and spaced wide enough apart for the leakage of trans-
mitted energy between them not to damage or inhibit the receiver.
Typical separations of 1/3-1 metre and beamwidths of typically +60° ensure
that the antenna coverages overlap at operating altitudes, but the leakage path can
set a lower limit to the measurable altitude, important in the case of automatic
landing.
The advent of semiconductor technologies has enabled pulse radar techniques
to be employed, through the ability to generate very short pulses, and to handle
them in the receiver. The low power needed for the transmitter enables altimeters
for some purposes to use semiconductors for the generation of the r.f. power.

Secondary surveillance radar Secondary surveillance radar, the system adopted by the International Civil Avia-
(SSR) tion Organisation (ICAO) to provide an identification capability within the world’s
air traffic control systems, was derived from the military ‘identification friend and
foe’ (IFF) system with which it coexists and inter-operates. The system comprises
interrogating radars on the ground and Transponder beacons carried in aircraft.
SSR offers particular benefits in areas where ground-based primary radars
suffer from clutter, and where a high density of aircraft movements makes it
:
220
 Civil aviation applications
impossible to associate notified aircraft movements with the appropriate primary
radar plot.
Interrogation radars have usually been co-sited with the air traffic control
primary radars, their antennas sometimes being attached pick-a-back on the primary
radar antenna, but the value of the system has become such that separate sites at
favourable locations are now sometimes adopted.
Interrogation is carried out by the transmission of a pair of pulses 0.8 micro-
seconds in duration on a frequency of 1030 MHz, with a characteristic separation.
The transponder carried by the aircraft receives and recognises the interrogation
and responds by transmitting, after a precise pre-determined interval, a group of
code pulses within two framing pulses.
There are four modes of interrogation, denoted A, B, C and D. The mode for
which a response is required is called up by selection of the spacing of the inter-
rogating pulse pair, the pulse intervals being 8, 17, 21 and 25 microseconds
respectively.
An additional pulse may be transmitted between the interrogating pulses, 2
microseconds after the first pulse. This is transmitted using a broader lower gain
antenna beam, and is to enable the transponder to recognise spurious interroga-
tions being received through the sidelobes of the interrogator antenna, which are
not responded to.
The response from the aircraft is at a frequency of 1090 GHz. The two framing
pulses are separated by 20.3 microseconds, the interval between them allowing for
codes of up to 12 pulses at 1.45 microsecond spacing, the pulse at 10.15 micro-
second being disallowed. Interrogation modes A and B are used for aircraft iden-
tification each mode providing 4096 response codes. Mode C is used to report
the altitude of the aircraft automatically, a barometric altimeter capsule inde-
pendent of the aircrew’s navigation system being provided for this purpose, preset
to an arbitrary datum. The 4096 codes provide for altitude reporting by 100 foot
intervals. Interrogations in modes A or B can be followed immediately by an inter-
rogation on mode C. The fourth mode has not yet been committed to use but the
possibility of using this for a two-way data link is envisaged.
Unlike primary radar, SSR can distinguish individual responding aircraft in a
crowded environment such as the terminal area around an airport. To exploit its
capability to supplement primary radar in this role some SSR interrogators are now
being equipped with a monopulse capability which considerably improves the
accuracy of tracking.

Airborne Doppler radars Aircraft operating over the oceans, and over the less developed areas of the world
where they do not have the benefit of ground navigation beacons and Air Traffic
Control monitoring, have to depend on on-board instrumentation and dead-
reckoning for knowledge of their position. As a result substantial errors can build
up on long flights since the system is notin any way ground-related, and landmarks
which could guide them may be missed. The airborne Doppler radar was conceived
initially against military needs for accurate autonomous navigation, as a means of
providing continuous ground-referenced navigation information (see Chapter
Seven, Doppler Navigation).

Distance measuring This is a secondary radar system, usually used in conjunction with VOR direc-
equipment (DME) (see tional beacons. In this case the interrogator is carried in the aircraft to interrogate
Chapter Seven) ground beacons which respond after a defined interval, enabling the aircraft’s
distance from the beacon to be determined.
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 Airborne Radar

Air traffic control radars (see Although these are not airborne systems they are associated with flying, and for
Chapter Seven) this reason they are frequently included in the classification of avionics.
Being located on the ground they do not have the restrictions on antenna size
and available power and cooling to which airborne equipments are subject. Thus
they employ very large antennas, and are able to operate at lower frequencies to
minimise the effects of atmospheric attenuation and rain clutter.

MILITARY APPLICATIONS

Whilst the preponderance of civil aircraft have a common single role of transpor-
tation and employ radars for the purposes of facilitating this role, military aircraft
are designed for a wide range of different roles. Some are specialised, such as
for AEW, airborne interception, anti-submarine warfare, reconnaissance and deep
interdiction, while some, such as the tactical fighter, are multi-role, giving air
support to the army, ensuring air superiority, conducting tactical ground attack
and providing airfield defence.
In turn the aircraft’s radars may be specialised or multi-role. We will first take
a look at radars for some of the specialised roles, and conclude with reference
to multi-role systems.

Airborne interception Until the 1960s high power pulse radar provided an effective means for night and
all-weather fighter aircraft to detect their quarry at sufficient range to be able to
manoeuvre into a firing position for their weapons. However, the rethinking
brought about by the introduction of highly effective surface-to-air guided
weapons, led to the tactic of low level penetration at heights of a few hundred
feet. As a result when the radar beam of an interceptor aircraft searched for a low
flying intruder, its radar would illuminate and receive echoes simultaneously from
the target and the ground close to it. The area of ground within the beamwidth
and sidelobes, and simultaneously within the pulsewidth, could return echoes
(ground clutter) large enough to obscure the target return. To overcome this
disability the Pulse Doppler form of radar, described earlier, has been developed.
The range of Doppler frequency shifts encountered is a function of the
maximum operating speed of the radar aircraft and the maximum target speed to
be handled. For example if the maximum speeds of both fighter and target are say
1200 knots the closing speed could be 2400 knots, and the doppler shift, for a
radar operating at 10 GHz, some 72,000 Hz.
To avoid ambiguities in range the p.r.f. of the radar must be over twice this
figure, in excess of 144 KHz, if there are not to be ambiguities in the frequency
spectrum as a result of p.r.f. sidebands falling within the Doppler frequency band
or Doppler frequencies folding about the sidebands. A radar wherein the signal
spectrum is unambiguous in velocity is known as a high p.r.f. radar.
It is possible to operate in a range between low p.r.f. and high p.r.f., known
as medium p.r.f., by employing bursts of several different p.r.f.’s within each dwell-
time and employing signal correlation processing to resolve both target range and
Doppler velocity ambiguities. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processors are
commonly used to create a pseudo-bank of Doppler filters for each range cell
within the coverage, replacing the banks of hardware filters used in earlier systems.
The functional characteristics of high and medium p.r.f. systems have a number
of important differences. Broadly speaking the high p.r.f. system offers clutter-free
detection of on-coming aircraft but may incur clutter in the broadside on and tail
chase aspects. Medium p.r.f. can offer clutter free operation at shorter ranges in
‘

222
 Military applications

any aspect, but there may be some speeds at which the radar is ineffective at the
longer ranges. While the inclusion of both modes of operation provides a robust
solution, weight, size and complexity limitations do not allow this in radars for
smaller aircraft.

Airborne early warning Originally developed to enable more effective air defence of the US fleets in the
Pacific Ocean in the later stages of the Second World War, AEW has, until the
last decade been developed primarily for naval purposes. However the increasing
speeds of modern aircraft and the adoption of low altitude contour-hugging
tactics by deep-strike aircraft has created a vital role for AEW in overland air
defence.
The objective of AEW is to provide much earlier detection of potentially hostile
air movements than can be achieved from ground-based sensors so that the scale
and tactics of a hostile force can be assessed, and the necessary defence resources
committed and directed effectively into successful engagement with the enemy.
The detection range of radars of the size that can be incorporated into inter-
ceptor and fighter aircraft is only a few tens of miles so the AEW aircraft must
provide the means of bringing the fighter within radar range and in a position
where its speed and manoeuvre capabilities can ensure an engagement.
To achieve the search range required for effective early warning the AEW
aircraft must carry as large an antenna and generate as much r.f. power as possible.
For naval purposes the size limits are set by the needs of operation in aircraft
carriers, but for the overland role large transport aircraft are employed.
Because of the long ranges, the higher radar frequencies are precluded by
atmospheric and cloud and rainfall attenuation, and frequencies in the 3 GHz and
VHF region are usually employed.
VHF operation has the benefits of virtual immunity to the effects of cloud and
the rates of rainfall encountered in any area of the world, lower levels of clutter
return from rough seas and land, but the disadvantages of wider antenna beam-
width leading to poorer resolution, greater vulnerability to hostile jamming, and
somewhat lower maximum ranges.
The 3 GHz frequency band gives better resolution and longer ranges, and is
unlikely to be significantly affected by cloud and rainfall in temperate climates.
Automatic tracking of targets by computer in the aircraft is employed and target
information is usually provided for a team of fighter directors in the aircraft, but
the target information may also be data-linked to the ground based air defence
system.

Navigation/Attack There are several ways in which radar assists the crew of a ground attack aircraft
to find their way to their assigned target with sufficient accuracy to be able to pick
it out and attack.
In the en route phase the radar may scan and display a ‘radar’ map of the terrain
for many miles ahead of the aircraft to assist in identifying features and landmarks.
The radar may be directed against identified features on the ground and used to
derive an accurate instantaneous range and bearing measurement which is used
to update the on-board navigation system. This same method can be used if the
target is hard to distinguish, but is at a known position relative to a nearby iden-
tifiable feature. An accurate positional fix is taken on this, from which the target
position can be derived with precision by the on-board navigation system.
In the situation where the target can be visually distinguished by the pilot, the
monopulse ground ranging mode can be used in conjunction with the aiming sight
223
 Airborne Radar

to determine the exact moment for bomb release, thus taking out uncertainties in
knowledge of the aircraft’s height above the target in rough terrain.

Ground mapping In the early stages of the Second World War the operational emphasis of radar
development was directed towards air defence, initially to ground fighter direction
radar then to radars for airborne interception and ship and submarine detection
and attack. It was nonetheless noted that airborne radars detected echoes from
objects on the surface of the earth, and that these varied greatly in their magnitude
and extent according to the nature of the objects causing them. Large conurbations
were readily distinguishable from the surrounding countryside. Thus, when the
emphasis turned to offence and the need arose for navigation aids which could
operate at ranges beyond those attainable from ground-based beacons, the poten-
tial of airborne radar for ground mapping had béen recognised. The H2S ground-
mapping radar was conceived, operating first with some success at 9 centimetre
wavelengths, then at 3 centimetres with an ability to map terrain out to some 50
miles around the aircraft (Fig. 1.6).
There are two major developments of the mapping radar in present day use. One
is provided as a mode of operation of the forward looking nose radar in a ground
attack aircraft, limited by the location to an antenna width of about 3 to 1 metre
giving a beamwidth of about 2-3 degrees. The other utilises comparatively large
(up to 10-metre long) antennas, located along the length of an aircraft fuselage
or carried in a pod beneath it, and looking broadside onto the direction of flight.
These latter, ‘sideways looking airborne radars’ (SLAR), are relevant to the
reconnaissance role rather than navigation/attack and are described separately
later.
Mapping radars of the 1940-60 period were intended for aircraft flying typi-
cally at a height of 15,000 ft or above where the horizon limited range is in excess
of 150 miles. Operation at 3 cm wavelength was preferred because it gave a good
compromise between mapping resolution and the limitation of attainable range
imposed by atmospheric attenuation.
From a height of 15,000 ft, the pencil beam from an antenna would illuminate
the ground between some 30-50 and 150 miles. Because of the rapid fall-off in
returned signal with range the returns from towards the nearer end of their
coverage would be many times stronger than those from the far end, which intro-
duced difficulties in handling their signal and displaying the radar map. The
configuration of the antenna was therefore modified to extend the lower flank of
the radar beam so that the signal strength would fall off at a rate which would
result in approximately the same signal from equal target echoing areas through
the beam coverage. Because of the law of variation of the antenna gain with the
depression angle of the beam these became known as cosecant squared (Cosec?)
antennas.
The advent of the long-range ground-to-air guided weapon has denied the high
and medium altitudes to attack aircraft. Many of the attack aircraft of today will
fly at altitudes of a few hundred feet to penetrate below the beams of ground
radars in the region where they are limited by the local horizon, or by ground
clutter. From an altitude of 300 feet the horizon distance is only some 20 miles.
These shorter ranges enable much shorter wavelengths to be used, which, with
their finer definition, allow a better prospect of identifying features and target
during the approximately two minutes in which the aircraft will travel the 15 or
so miles that the mapping radar will display.

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 Military applications
Ground collision avoidance The development of short pulse radar and monopulse ground ranging technologies
has enabled modes to be provided in attack aircraft to safeguard the aircraft from
collision with the ground when flying at levels of a few hundred feet. These can
take a variety of forms of varying complexity. The titles used to distinguish these
are not universally consistent; those used here are given primarily to distinguish
the different forms.

Terrain clearance The simplest form of air-to-ground avoidance, this takes the form of an elevation
plane monopulse radar operating in a sector scanning mode akin to ground
mapping. The boresight is scanned in a stabilised plane looking forward and the
penetration of terrain above the beam’s crossover is sensed and used to paint on
the pilot’s display those areas which are above the aircraft flight vector.
In a more sophisticated implementation, the monopulse receiver measures the
angular deviation of every echo relative to the crossover axis, and these values are
used in conjunction with the associated range and the selected depression angle
of the boresight to compute the distance of the reflecting features from the flight
path plane. A clearance height is selected, and those areas less than this distance
below the flight path painted on the pilot’s display. This guides him in flying the
aircraft to avoid those hazards either by lateral deviation or by climbing above
them.

Terrain following In this function the radar is used in the ground ranging mode to determine the
profile of the terrain ahead of the aircraft by measuring the range and associated
depression angle of each point along the profile. The elevation angles of succes-
sive peaks ahead of the aircraft are computed to determine the climb or dive angle
necessary to clear them. This information is presented to the pilot in flight director
form or may be coupled to the aircraft’s automatic flight control system to provide
automatic control of the aircraft in the pitch plane — ‘automatic terrain following’.
There are many factors influencing the detail design of practical terrain-
following systems.
In a manned aircraft it is usual to limit the pitch plane acceleration demanded,
to typically 2 g negative, and a few g positive, in order to avoid giving the crew
an unnecessarily uncomfortable ride which would detract from their ability to
carry out their missions efficiently. This enables a template to be visualised which
reflects the potential of the aircraft to climb over obstacles ahead of the aircraft
without exceeding the selected maximum g loads. The elevation angles of peaks
detected ahead of the aircraft by the radar are compared in the terrain-following
computer with a stored version of the template and only pitch demands which
penetrate the profile are fed through to the flight director display or the flight
control system. This ensures that the aircraft does not climb earlier than is
necessary to clear. obstacles ahead, having regard to the g limits selected, and
thereby minimises the exposure of the aircraft to ground-based air defence
weapons. a)
In practice the terrain whose profile ahead of the aircraft must be measured to
provide effective terrain-following within the usual limits lies between some 5-10
degrees above the flight path and 10-20 degrees below it; this range determines
the vertical scan pattern of the radar. The gust excursion in aircraft heading in
normal straight flight may be several degrees. If the radar azimuth beamwidth is
less than this, a two bar vertical scan may be used to ensure that the terrain-
following system does not miss any terrain ahead that the aircraft may pass over.
é

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 Airborne Radar

The climb rate limits, and the speed of the aircraft, determine the number of scans
per second which need to be performed to ensure that clearance requirements are
detected soon enough.
Terrain-following radars enable aircraft to fly at low altitudes in darkness or
bad visibility conditions in which the pilot could not operate. A consequence of
this is that a malfunction or failure of the equipment could leave the pilot in a
situation from which he could not recover.
Much care is therefore taken in the system and equipment design of terrain-
following systems to ensure that failure survival and fail-safe capabilities are
incorporated in the design so that operational failures of any form are detected,
and, for instance, an automatic climb demand is generated at the moment of failure.

IFF and SSR In the earliest days of air defence radar it was realised that there was a need to
distinguish the radar plots of friendly aircraft from those of hostile ones. No
fundamental differences could be deduced by which the radar echoes of one could
be distinguished from the other, so it was decided to introduce a deliberate
difference. This was effected by equipping friendly aircraft with transponders
which would respond to an interrogating radar transmission by transmitting a
recognisable return signal. From this concept have evolved the more advanced IFF
systems used in current military aircraft and the secondary surveillance radar
(SSR) system used for civil Air Traffic Control.
The essential features of IFF are the same as those described under SSR. IFF
differs in its modes of interrogation and response. There are three modes, denoted
Modes 1, 2, 3. Mode 3 is virtually identical with Civil Mode C. For Modes 1
and 2 the interrogation pulses have separation of 3 and 5 microseconds respec-
tively. The responses to these modes are equivalent to the responses to civil modes
A and B but are used for ephemeral ‘password’ codes rather than to give the
identity of the interrogated aircraft.

Reconnaissance Information on the locations of enemy forces and facilities is of vital importance
to military commanders. The aircraft has provided the means to take a look at
enemy territory where ground patrols cannot reach.
The role is of sufficient importance for special versions of aircraft to have
been developed specifically for the reconnaissance role. There is a variety of
sensor types, each of which has a part to play in the reconnaissance task. These
include the human eye, downward and oblique cameras, both in the visual region
and in the infra-red, sideways looking infra-red linescan, and high definition
radar. Radar has a special feature, in that all the other sensors see a progressive
foreshortening of the view when looking towards the distance, whereas radar
separates features uniformly according to distance, since it measures the time delay
of the echoes from features and this delay is directly proportional to their range.
The normal plan position presentation on a radar display therefore gives an
unforeshortened view.
Obtaining the maximum of intelligence requires the radar to have the highest
attainable resolution. Operation at very short pulselengths can be used to give
excellent resolution in range but the nose location of the radar in most fighter
aircraft limits the available aperture to about 1/2 to 1 metre. The specialist recon-
naissance aircraft carries the antenna mounted along the length of the fuselage,
giving radar beams broadside to the aircraft and enabling antennas of up to 10
metres in length to be carried. Instead of scanning the radar beam, the motion of
the aircraft is used to sweep the narrow radar beam over the zone to be examined.
226
 Reference

The radar presentation, as well as being displayed to the crew, is photographically

recorded across a continuously moving film strip, so as to build up a continuous
photographic map as the mission progresses.
Some aircraft are designed for high-altitude reconnaissance where range is not
limited by the horizon, and for this purpose frequencies around 10 GHz give a
compromise between high resolution and long range through the atmosphere.
Other types of aircraft are designed to penetrate enemy territory at very low alti-
tudes. For these the horizon limits the possible range to a few tens of miles and
millimetre wavelengths may be used, giving excellent resolution.
The advances in coherent signal technology and in fast signal processing have
made possible the use of ‘synthetic aperture’ techniques. Because the patch of
ground illuminated at operating ranges by the radar beam is wide compared with
the length of the antenna, the synthetic aperture radar is able to process the
coherent radar returns from any feature while the aircraft is moving through
several times the actual length of the antenna and thereby to simulate a corre-
spondingly longer antenna.

Multimode radars We have already described a number of ways in which radar can assist the aircrew
in performing in various missions. The tactical fighter is a versatile aircraft
employed for many purposes, from ground attack to air superiority and air defence.
The recent great reductions in the size of electronic circuitry have enabled various
air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities to be combined within a single ‘multimode’
radar small and light enough to be fitted in the restricted nose space of a fighter
aircraft.

REFERENCE

Bowen, E. G. Radar Days, Adam Hilger, 1987, p. 36.

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 CHAPTER 10 ELECTRONIC WARFARE - AN
OVERVIEW
BRYAN R. DRAKE. Product Group Manager, Electronic Warfare
and Weapons Electronics, Plessey Avionics Ltd.

Bryan Drake’s first encounter with electronic warfare was as an Air Electronics
Officer flying on Vulcan Mk 2 bomber squadrons with the RAF in 1966. He
was involved in EW and air defence exercises throughout the world, including
USA, Australia, Cyprus, Malta, Singapore, Libya, Canada, Scandinavia and
Germany.
He later became Station Electronics Warfare Officer at a Vulcan base,
responsible for training and examining operational aircrew in EW. This also
included participation in simulated combat exercises. In 1979 he was posted to
the RAF Central Tactics and Trials Organisation where he managed airborne
jammer trials in UK, California and against RN warships.
Taking up his present appointment in 1982 Mr Drake has responsibility for
all aspects of EW including ECM, ESM, laser and missile warning, radar
decoys, system programmers and interface equipments.

To the uninitiated, Electronic Warfare (EW) is a black art — a subject bedevilled

with jargon, abbreviations, jiggery-pokery and catchwords. To the enthusiast, it
is an exciting and challenging application of the principles of physics combining
a blend of innovation, low cunning and deceit in a cat-and-mouse game of measure
and countermeasure.
In this chapter the meaning and nature of EW is discussed, followed by a study
of the extent and characteristics of the threat before examining in detail the various
components of typical airborne EW systems. Finally, future traits and trends will
be considered.
So what is EW? Probably the best all-round definition is: ‘The means of deter-
mining, exploiting or disrupting the enemy’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum
while safeguarding its use for friendly forces.’ To the strategist, this means
minimising the enemy’s potency by force reduction. To the Air Commander, EW
is a force multiplier - enhancing the effectiveness of his combat aircraft. The
accountant views EW with more jaundiced eyes; it is as an expensive addition to
the weapons arsenal which lacks visible justification. For aircrew, it is the key to
survivability — reducing the time available for hostile weapon systems to acquire
and kill.
The EW spectrum shown in Fig. 10.1 spans from near DC to light. Wherever
communications or radar search, detection and tracking weapon systems operate,
EW equipment must be able to intercept, analyse, follow and counter. Thus, in
addition to the radio bands, EW must respond wherever radar, laser, infra-red
and other electro-optical (EO) sensors are found.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly when airborne EW came into fashion. Certainly,
there are numerous examples of its use during the Second World War. Micro-
‘

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 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

THE EW SPECTRUM

Communications and Radar

Frequency
(GHz)

Electro-optics
Wavelength
microns
(= 10-* MTR)

Bands Infrared (Millimetric band) —>

Visible

Fig. 10.1 The electronic

warfare spectrum

phones were placed in aircraft engine compartments and the resultant noise used
to modulate voice channels and disrupt enemy ground controllers’ communication
with their fighters. Metallic radar-reflecting strips called ‘window’ were dropped
during bomber raids cver Germany to confuse ground radar operators. Simple
receivers illuminated a cockpit warning light when a fighter’s radar was detected.
Subsequently, during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslavakia, a blanket electronic
interference was used to mask events from the West. Jamming of surface—air missile
radar and pyrotechnic decoys to counter heat-seeking missiles featured extensively
during Israeli-Arab wars. American ‘Wild Weasel’ specialist EW aircraft were
employed to attack and neutralise radar-controlled weapons in Vietnam.
More recently, during the Falklands campaign, Lynx helicopters protected British
Task Force ships by broadcasting radar noise to confuse and decoy Exocet
missiles. From these simple but robust beginnings, EW has grown to become a vital
and integral part of modern air warfare.
Improvements to radars have prompted more innovative and effective ways of
interfering with their use. Successful disruption techniques led in turn to further
modifications and enhancements to the radar — and so on. Moving target indi-
cators, frequency agility, pulse compression and bistatic operation are just a few
of the techniques employed to make life difficult for the enemy bent on disrupting
radar reception. To succeed, EW must be therefore innovative, responsive and
dynamic.
Aircraft self-protection equipments are a necessary compromise between oper-
ational effect, cost, size and weight. It can be argued that a reasonable proportion
of aircraft cost to allocate to self-protection is in the order of 10-15 per cent.
Unfortunately available space on modern aircraft is at a premium and weight
budgets are usually set with aircraft performance uppermost in the designer’s
priority list. Weapons, communication and navigation equipments compete for real
estate and are readily recognised as essential to safe and effective operation. EW
effectiveness is more difficult to quantify. How many aircraft will be saved if a
jammer is fitted? How much more effective will combat tactics be if used in
conjunction with a radar warning equipment? EW is often destined to receive the
lowest priority of budget, space and available sites. Many pilots would rather sport
a gun than a jammer. The effect of a gun is easily demonstrated and understood.
It is harder to put one’s faith in a guaranteed result of invisible electromagnetic
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 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

waves. Consequently, the introduction of airborne EW equipments has been a slow

and painful business. Education, trials and demonstrations are important but most
progress has resulted from the harsh lessons of attrition during combat.
Before the capabilities and benefits of EW are addressed, the practicalities of
specifying airborne EW equipment must be considered. All too frequently, once
the advantage of fitting EW equipments is accepted, the sky becomes the limit! A
comprehensive range of equipments capable of dealing with past, present and
future threats is specified. Budgets are exceeded and the aircraft takes the form
of a ‘one-ton budgie’ (Fig. 10.2), and although extensively equipped, it would be
unable to get off the ground. This results in, not the procurement of heavy and
overspecified systems, but in many combat aircraft throughout the world, flying
around without vital EW protection.

Fig. 10.2 The electronic

warfare equipped
one-ton budgie!
Shaun Singleton.
Plessey Avionics

THE EW SPECTRUM

So that radar, communications and EO systems can be identified, located, moni-

tored, suppressed or neutralised, it is necessary to catalogue the enemy’s electronic
order of battle (EOB). Much of this assessment involves eavesdropping and data-
gathering — signals and electronic intelligence (SIGINT and ELINT). Apart from
the obvious resources needed to collect information, the agencies responsible must
be backed by large analytical and technical teams to carry out the substantial task
of extrapolating and evaluating emitters of the EOB.
Obviously, a great deal of valuable information is transmitted over the air waves
in peace time which can be intercepted and used by the enemy. Ground radar
operators need to practise intercepts; communications channels and weapon
systems must be tried and tested. From these transmissions, a substantial amount
of data is available to the electronic eavesdropper including frequency, pulse
repetition interval, (PRI), scan type and rate, antenna beamwidth and power levels.
Clearly, efforts can be made to minimise the amount and value of information
released.
230
 The EW spectrum

Availability of ‘war only’ frequencies and other parameters, limiting power to

reduce the intercept range and coding transmissions provides some measure of
protection against SIGINT and ELINT during peacetime. Nevertheless, the
practical limitations on parametric variations are restricted by physical factors such
as the performance of waveguides, antennas, power amplifiers, magnetrons and
filters. These factors are in addition to the limitations imposed by physics which
govern choice of propagation frequencies, pulse width, PRI and power required
to operate effectively.
In general, equipments designed for long range use are easier to intercept and
exploit than close-in systems. As well as high levels of radiated power, long-range
early warning equipments have low scan rates and relatively long dwell times. This
contrasts markedly with a single shot laser range finder which provides a once and
forever chance of detection, and only then when within visual range. Interception
of some transmissions must therefore be supplemented by less honourable tactics:
espionage, photography, loan or theft of components, equipment, handbooks and
documents, spoils of war or purchases through a trusted third party. Additionally,
a vast amount of data is legally available through open press — newspapers, tech-
nical papers and defence journals.
During evaluation of the EOB, it is also important to consider the effects of
known or potential technological advances. Some estimates can be made by extrap-
olating data from friendly systems. However, it is all too easy to overemphasise the
enemy’s capability by using the most advanced technology as a yardstick.
Intelligent use of emitter data in conjunction with the combat scenario therefore,
is the first step in defining the EW requirement and developing suitable tactics.
An example of representative threats is shown in Fig. 10.3. Fundamental issues
governing the need for EW include: definition of the threat, aircraft role, perform-
Fig. 10.3. Frequency spread
of Soviet search, ance, flight profile, planned altitude and mission. Having established the back-
acquisition and fire ground and need, a detailed study of the range of EW equipment types and the
control radars technology available to provide the capability required can be made.

Frequency Band

Search and
early
warning
Sli. Cake
=a
Height
finders = Side Net

Surface-to-
air missile
radars [> Low Blow

aa
Flap = a
Gun radars
areatene Dish
aa
co Foxfire
High Fix C3 |
| coScan Odd
Air-to-air Spin Scanc |
radars = Skip Spin
High Lark

231
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

ELECTRONIC SUPPORT MEASURES

Electronic support measures Electronic support measures (ESM) is defined as the interception, location and
identification of radiated electromagnetic energy to provide threat recognition and
intelligence. In this section, the characteristics of ESM equipments ranging from
self protection threat warners to the specialised collection of detailed parametric
data for intelligence purposes will be considered.
Probably the most widely used airborne ESM device is the radar warning
receiver (RWR). The purpose of the most basic RWR is to provide timely warning
of the presence of a threat, together with an indication of direction and lethality.
RWRs should also provide threat identity - or at the very least threat priority
(radar in search, track or lock), and category (controlling guns, missiles, ground-
to-air, air-to-air) and estimated range.
Broadly speaking, the performance of an RWR is influenced by the type of
receiver, sensitivity, the operational scenario, signal density, processing capability
and storage — all factors which impact on cost. Even then, the performance of an
installed RWR is only as good as the quality of the supporting data base.
The most common in-service RWRs are based on the crystal video receiver (Fig.
10.4). These receivers typically cover the main radar band between 2 and 18 GHz.
Incoming radar pulses are received in each of the four spiral antennas at signal
strengths related to the direction of arrival (DOA). The crystal detectors then
convert the signals into a video representation of the incoming pulses. Although
this detection removes phase and carrier frequency information, the essential inter-
pulse characteristics of the pulse train are retained (Fig. 10.5).

Fig. 10.4 Basic crystal video Antennas

as
radar warning
receiver

Digital/

detectors
Processor
analogue
©)
Display

Threat data
and Audio
ee warning

Fig. 10.5 Video pulse train,

crystal video
receiver RF
signals

Single
band
video

Dual BI
banded
video B2

232
 Electronic support measures

The resulting video waveform enables time of arrival (TOA), pulse width (pw)
and amplitude to be derived. From this data, PRI can be deduced using the repeat
pattern (for stable PRI) or the pattern sequence (for staggered /jittered PRI). The
amplitude variation of succesive video pulses enables scan rate and type to be
assessed. In theory, pulse width can also be derived — however, the inevitable
rounding and misshaping of pulses during propagation makes PW a notoriously
unreliable parameter.
From the crystal video receiver, we can therefore extract DOA, scan pattern
and PRI. Separation of particular threat radars depends on matching the received
sequences and patterns against known PRI and scan data. This matching is rela-
tively simple when operating in low signal densities.
Problems occur in higher densities because signals coincide, overlap and
obscure each other. Some temporary relief can be obtained by splitting the
2-18 GHz coverage into three or four sub-bands; this reduces the signal density
in each band. However, as pulse densities increase still further, it becomes
necessary to raise the receiver sensitivity threshold. Although this technique effec-
tively lowers pulse density, wanted as well as unwanted signals are suppressed.
These techniques work well for pulse radars, but what about continuous wave
(CW) signals? The video translation of CW produces a d.c. voltage which, instead
of registering a threat, merely raises the noise level. To overcome this deficiency,
the input signal is chopped at a predetermined rate; when this repetition rate is
detected, the presence of CW threat is assumed.
A further limitation of the crystal video RWR is that, even when pulses are
successively de-interleaved and matched, many radars share similar PRI and scan
pattern, which in turn leads to ambiguities in identifying type — or even deciding
if the radar is friendly or hostile. In an attempt to overcome this deficiency, some
RWRs incorporate a frequency selective receiver (FSR). When ambiguities of PRI
occur, this separate FSR is switched into circuit to measure frequency and so
provide another parameter to assist identification. These refinements of the basic
RWR are shown in Fig. 10.6.
Whatever the limitations, the crystal video RWR nevertheless provides simul-
taneous coverage of the radar band from 2 to 18 GHz, is low cost, robust, and
operationally attractive for lower value platforms. Even with its limitations, it vastly
enhances survivability by providing rapid warning of most immediate threats which
at least enables some evasive manoeuvre to be carried out.
If RWRs are to be improved further, RF frequency information as a sort param-
eter for all signals must be retained. The benefits of reducing receiver bandwidth
to cope with the high pulse density environment have already been seen. These
features are included in many modern RWRs and airborne ESM equipments (Fig.
10.7). For example, the channelised superheterodyne receiver utilises a number
of narrow-band channels to cover the desired radar spectrum. To achieve even
greater frequency resolution, these channels can be further sub-divided. Although
less economic in size, weight and cost than crystal video RWR, it has the same
ability as the wide open receiver to monitor all pulses in the spectrum simul-
taneously.
A lower cost alternative which also retains frequency information is the swept
or stepped receiver. A narrow band filter is swept across each of the receiver sub-
bands. In this way, frequency is measured to the accuracy of the narrow band
filter. At any instant in time, all pulses outside the coverage of the filter are
ignored. This technique ensures that the receiver functions well in high pulse
sensitivity environments but there is a danger that wanted signals using short
233
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

Antennas
Cc

Rf 2-18 GHz
Frequency
hee aera selective
receiver

Rf 2-18 GHz t

Band Band Band Band Frequency info

splitter splitter splitter splitter

Crystal

©)
_ detectors

Digital
Processor
Display

Threat data And

ae
priority listing warning

Fig. 10.6 Advanced crystal

video, radar
warning receiver

Fig. 10.7. Advanced radar

warning receiver
Plessey Avionics

duration pulses will be missed if the sweep rate is too slow. Conversely, if the
sweep is too fast, insufficient time will be available to extract the required data.
Overall, the swept/stepped receiver can provide a highly efficient system if the
right balance is struck between bandwidth and sweep rate in conjunction with
intelligence data, scenario, role, cost and physical constraints.
There are many variations on the theme. Wide open and compressive super-
heterodyne receivers, instantaneous digital frequency measurement equipments and
‘
 Electronic countermeasures

state-of-the-art receivers using acousto-optic devices called Bragg-cells exist

today. The more complicated and costly systems are generally more suited to
intelligence collection than threat warning. Key parameters for the threat warner
are time, lethality and general direction. Information gathering systems require
accurate DOA and detailed parameter data at the expense of immediacy. Never-
theless, there is an ever-greying area between threat warners and airborne ESM
receivers as technology advances, the quality of available data improves and
operators demand better and more capable RWRs.

ELECTRONIC COUNTERMEASURES

Electronic countermeasures (ECM) is defined as the actions taken to prevent,

disrupt or reduce the enemy’s effective use of the electronic spectrum. In this
section the various properties, types and characteristics of radar and communi-
cations jamming will be outlined. The properties and application of passive coun-
termeasures (such as chaff) and other off-board radar decoys will also be
investigated.
The aim of radar ECM is to induce sufficient interference into a receiver to
deny acquisitions, tracking or engagement. If a missile is fired, ECM may be used
in the ‘end game’ to defeat missile guidance. The best known and frequently
encountered airborne ECM device is the self protection jammer (SPJ).
The purpose of an SPJ, is to achieve a large measure of protection over the
complete range of enemy radar assisted or guided missiles and guns. Parameters
such as the power required, frequency and antenna coverage, type of jamming,
complexity and configuration are related to aircraft type, role and the threat scen-
ario. In particular, availability of aircraft space, flight profile and area of operation
are crucial factors in deciding the SPJ specification — or even more fundamentally,
whether it is worth fitting a jammer at all!
A classic candidate for the SPJ fit is the ground/attack/reconnaissance (GR)
aircraft. These aircraft carry out missions deep behind enemy lines and are there-
fore extremely vulnerable to attack from the full range of hostile weapon systems.
Even before specifying the actual SPJ fit, some measures can be taken to minimise
the risk of operating in this environment. Flying sorties at very low level limits the
radar horizon and hence the time of exposure to threats. Also, when engaging low
flying targets radar performance is degraded due to the effect of ground clutter.
Additionally, decreasing the radar cross-sectional area by structural design or use
of special paints and materials makes the aircraft harder to detect, track and
destroy. Strict control of communications and radar emissions reduces the oppor-
tunity for the enemy to detect and exploit the aircraft’s transmissions. Nevertheless,
a GR aircraft has to run the gauntlet of the extensive, diverse and formidable
threat systems so even with these measures, survivability could well depend on the
capability of ECM.
From the typical threat table in Fig. 10.3 it can be seen that jammers should
cover the radar band from 2 to 18 GHz. However, the usual cost/weight/size
constraints prevail. Frequently a single ‘extended’ band from 6 to 18 GHz is used
to cover most of the high priority overland threats. There is a growing acceptance
that future ECM equipment will need to cover threats in the millimetre radar band
above 18 GHz.
Two categories of SPJs are in operational service — noise and deception
jammers. In simple terms, noise jamming is a robust technique aimed at swamping
the victim radar witha band of unwanted interference. Depending on the effect
235
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

desired, this type of jamming can be broadband, spot or swept spot. Broadband
jamming is aimed at covering a large number of threats or a frequency agile radar.
However, using broadband jamming means that, as available power is spread over
a large part of the spectrum, the power against any particular threat is reduced
proportionally. Only jamming power within the receiver bandwidth will be effec-
tive. At the other end of the scale, spot jamming over a few MHz will maximise
power against a single victim radar. A working compromise is seen in the swept
spot jammer where the narrow band spot is swept over a wider frequency to cover
multiple or agile threats. As usual, the laws of physics prevail — unless the spot
to sweep ratio is selected carefully, during periods, when the signal is unjammed,
operators will be able to acquire and track the aircraft. These types of jamming
are illustrated in Fig. 10.8.
Noise jamming relies on directing sufficient power into the victim radar’s main
beam to mask reception of the target. Figs 10.9(a) and (b) show the typical result
on a PPI display. Target range is denied completely and direction is made

Fig. 10.8 Types of noise Amp

jamming
A_B C D E
td pees Pree |

Freq
Unjammed signals
Amp

A,C,E Jammed
B,D Partial jamming

Freq
Broadband jamming
Amp

A, B, C, E Unjammed
D Jammed

Spot (narrow band) jamming hat

Amp
|
|| All signals
| jammed for
: part of sweep
|
|
F —
Swept spot jamming ee

236
 Electronic countermeasures

Fig. 10.9(a) Un-jammed PPR

radar display

Fig. 10.9(b) Main beam noise

jamming

Fig. 10.9(c) Main beam and

side lobe
jamming

237
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

ambiguous to the extent of the radar’s antenna beamwidth. If higher levels of

jamming power are used, it is possible to penetrate the victim’s sidelobes and
further complicate the radar picture (Fig. 10°9(c)).
If noise is transmitted continuously on the threat frequency, there is little need
for in-depth intelligence on the radar’s parameters. However, continuous noise is
wasteful of power, particularly against pulse radars with low duty cycles. An
attempt to rationalise jamming with the radar pulses is achieved in smart noise
jammers. These equipments attempt to predict and jam each radar pulse but revert
to the quiescent state during the pulse off period.
Ways of managing the available power even more effectively are found in the
family of deception jammers. As the name implies, these jammers attempt to trick
the victim into tracking the jamming pulse rather than the target. An example of
such a technique is range gate pull off (RGPO). RGPO is achieved by firstly
synchronising the jamming pulse with that of the radar so that a strong signal is
returned. This pulse will depress the radar’s automatic gain control so as to hide
the real target. The jamming pulse is then ‘walked off in time by inducing a gradu-
ally increasing delay in the transmitted pulses. This series of pulses will be inter-
preted by the radar as a strong target, but will be at a different range to the real
AGC depressed target. In practice RGPO is applied for 10-20 seconds to walk
the radar several hundreds of metres away from the aircraft. The sequence is then
repeated again to prevent the radar re-acquiring.
Against Doppler radars, a similar technique is used to cause velocity errors,
called velocity gate pull off (VGPO). In this case, a frequency shift is applied
instead of the time delay to the jamming signal to induce Doppler errors and walk
off the velocity gate.
Other deception programmes rely on modulating the jamming signal in such a
way as to attack the victim’s azimuth and elevation tracking circuits which rely on
comparing signal amplitude to assess the target position. For example, a scanning
radar relies on receiving maximum amplitude return when the target is on bore-
sight. If the jammer provides an interference modulation geared to the radar’s scan-
ning pattern, errors will be induced in the tracking gates. The optimum effect can
be achieved if the scanning rate is matched by the jammer and the false signal
amplitude is minimum when the radar is on boresight. This technique is known
as inverse scan modulation.
Whilst deception jammers use the available power economically, they are
dependent on a high degree of threat intelligence information to ensure the
desired effect will be achieved. In addition to transmitter scan rate, frequency, PW,
PRI information, harder to obtain details of tracking gates, AGC limits, ECCM
features and receiver thresholds must be correctly assessed to ensure an effective
jammer programme.
One advantage enjoyed by the jammer is that its transmissions have only to travel
one way from aircraft to radar. The threat radar’s pulses have to travel to the target
and back again. As received signal strength is inversely proportional to distance?,
this means that the jammer pulse is attenuated by distance” and the radar’s signal
by distance*. The point in space when the jammer’s advantage is negated and the
radar’s higher power allows it to see the target above the jamming is known as
the burn-through range.
We have seen that in its simplest form, a broadband jammer could be operated
continuously to obliterate reception over a range of enemy transmission frequencies.
However, we have also seen that this technique is extremely inefficient in its use
of power, weight and space. Furthermore, if jamming is used indiscriminately, it
238
 Electronic countermeasures

merely serves to alert the enemy; aircraft jamming will be detected by ESM at far
greater ranges than a radar which relies on reflective energy from the aircraft
skin. Home-on jam missiles can be launched at the convenient beam of con-
tinuous noise. Intelligent-jamming therefore, relies on detecting and periodically
monitoring the threat radar to respond effectively.
Recent United States jammer development has addressed the needs of multi-
service and multi-platform. The system, known as airborne self-protection jammer
(ASPJ) (Figs 10.10, consists of five units — two receivers, two multi-octave trans-
mitters and a processor. The units are common to a number of aircraft, including
A-6, AV-8B, F-14, F-16 and F-18.) Cooling and electrical connections are made
through an interface which is unique to each aircraft.

Fig. 10.10 Airborne self-

protection jammer
(ASPJ) Westing-
house/ITT, USA

Jammers can utilise a dedicated receiver or share the information from the
aircraft ESM. Whichever option is used, a necessary compromise must be made
when operating a high power noise generator on the same platform as a highly
sensitive receiver. Antennas must be sited to provide maximum isolation between
jammer and receiver (70 dB typical). In some installations, a combination of look-
through (switching off the jammer periodically to allow the receiver to operate)
and look-around (where the receiver scans around the narrow frequency band of
jamming) is used. In all practical installations, antenna siting is therefore a
compromise between the requirements of the jammer, the RWR, aircraft obscur-
ation and achieving satisfactory isolation.
To supplement the SPJ, or more often to give some measure of protection to
poorly equipped aircraft, two other categories of jammers exist: escort and stand-
off jammers. The escort jammer is used to provide an extensive capability to
degrade, deceive and destroy search and weapon radars. Probably the best known
example of the escort jammer is the US Wild Weasel aircraft which accompanied
aircraft raids on Vietnam. In this case jamming was backed by air-to-ground anti-
radar missiles which frequently induced the prudent operator to shut down the
ground radar as the aircraft approached. Stand-off jamming operates on a similar
principle but, in this case, the jammer provides blanket protection from a safe
239
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

Fig. 10.11 ASPJ — current distance from the threats. Much of the characteristics of jamming remain the same
applications. except that the geometry of mission aircraft, jammer and radar is complex.
Westinghouse/ITT,
Screening other aircraft requires much more power than that needed to cover
USA
one’s own skin echo. Additionally, if a jammer is operating at long range, the
power/distance’ ratio soon begins to bite and large jammers, antennas and aircraft
are needed. In general, few air forces can afford to operate sufficient stand off
and escort jammers. However, if operated effectively, these specialist aircraft can
have a marked impact on the success of combat missions.
Communications jamming (CJ) is also generally reserved for specialist aircraft
and operations. However, CJ requires a great deal of power (it does not enjoy
the SPJ’s advantage over the 2-way radar path). The geometry of transmitter,
receiver and jammer is also complex. Voice communications are particularly difficult
to jam because of man’s innate ability to recognise language in high noise environ-
ments and to make sense of broken transmissions and messages. In addition, the
_ use of data link, frequency hopping and spread spectrum transceivers makes effec-
tive CJ more and more difficult to achieve (Fig. 10.12).
240
 Electronic countermeasures

Fig. 10.12 ‘Sky Shadow’ pod

mounted
jammer Marconi-
Plessey—Racal

Although one of the earliest forms of airborne ECM, chaff is still fitted exten-
sively to many combat aircraft. Known as ‘window’ during the Second World
War, chaff consists of packages of metal strips cut as miniature dipoles so as to
produce strong reflections over the radar band. Each dipole is coated to ensure
clean separation from the others and weighted to produce a tumbling action during
its fall under gravity. Various dispensers are available to cater for the variety of
aircraft and roles. The dispensers either guillotine open flat packets, stream out
the dipoles by forced air through a venturi or fire the chaff out of cartridges (Fig.
10.13).
Many EW gurus felt that chaff would become obsolete with the advent of
moving target indicators (MTT) and Doppler radars. However, experience has
shown that chaff is an enduring and robust, low cost countermeasure. When used
in a dynamic air battle, with speed changes and manoeuvre, chaff is still considered

Fig. 10.13 Expendable

countermeasures —
chaff. Chemring
Ltd

241
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

to be a valid counter to most threats. Although originally chaff was dispensed in

many thousands of bundles to form safe corridors for subsequent missions; its main
use today is in the self protection role. Bundles are dispensed at short intervals
when under threat (as detected on the aircraft RWR). As a rule of thumb, each
package of chaff should be equivalent to at least twice the echoing area of the
aircraft. Radars using speed gates to distinguish chaff from typical aircraft must
allow some latitude for highly manoeuvrable targets. So even if MTI is partially
successful, it is likely that it will be upset by the sequence of chaff packages
leaving the aircraft at discrete intervals. Although not an end in itself, chaff forms
an integral and important part of modern aircraft self protection systems.
Other forms of off-board radar countermeasures are aimed at providing a similar
capability to chaff or supplementing the effect of the aircraft’s jammer. Mini decoys
providing a few watts of power can be released from chaff dispensers against semi-
active radars. These active decoys have two advantages over chaff: their echoing
area will remain relatively constant whereas chaff tends to disperse, and a Doppler
shift frequency can be superimposed to provide realistic aircraft velocities. More
ambitious decoys can be fired ahead or towed to perform the function of mini
jammers. Operating these jammers away from the aircraft negates the effect of
home-on jam, prevents radars from using leading edge tracking and provides a
more effective countermeasure to monopulse radars. Although off-board radar
decoys are fitted to few of today’s aircraft, there is little doubt that they will form
a vital counter to future more capable radars.

ELECTRO-OPTICS AND INFRA-RED

Electro-optics (EO) and infra-red (IR) are playing an ever increasing part in air
warfare. Ninety per cent of aircraft shot down in combat since 1972 have been
casualties to IR homing missiles. Optical gun sights and night vision devices add
enhanced capability to the already formidable radar threat. Lasers are used exten-
sively to provide high accuracy weapon tracking and ranging. EW must therefore
take account of this growing and often covert capability.
In this section, the applications of IR and lasers and the problems of detection
will be reviewed and some possible countermeasures outlined.
One of the most insidious anti-air threats is the IR heat-seeking [Link]
be launched from land, sea or air platforms. Shoulder launched IR homing missiles
are also widely available to most armies of the world. The IR threat is all the more
awesome because it is usually undetectable before impact.
The most common IR countermeasure is the expendable flare decoy (Fig. 10.14).
These rapidly igniting decoys are ejected away from the aircraft to produce a more
attractive source for the missile to follow. However, IR missiles are frequently
launched covertly (without assistance from other sensors and therefore not detect-
able on aircraft RWR/ESM). Unless the approach of the missile can be detected,
therefore, it is not possible to assess when best to eject the flares. Missile approach
warners (MAW) use Doppler radars to sense the approach of the threat and
missile launch warner (MLW) search for the missile plumes. Unfortunately, few
of these warning equipments are in service and aircrew cue the release of flares
by less scientific means — crossing enemy battlelines, overflying troops or shipping
and starting target runs.
An alternative countermeasure to the heat-seeking threat is the IR jammer (Fig.
10.15). These equipments also rely on producing an attractive IR source by using
a solid tao brick) or filament to produce the correct signature. However, whereas
242
 Electro-optics and infra-red

Fig. 10.14 Expendable

countermeasures
infra-red
flares. Pains @ FLARE, COUMTRAMEASURE No (18MKT
Wessex Ltd PW 168 GATE
NEM

FLARE, COUNTERMEASURE No. 216 MK 1

PWO218S DATE
NSM 1370-90-967-1176

Fig. 10.15 Infra-red

jammer British
Aerospace, Naval
and Electronic
Systems Div.,
Filton

WAR G00-088 OEE ome

flares decoy the missile by physical separation from the aircraft, on-board systems
must generate the required miss distance by modulating the IR source to cause
errors in the missile guidance. As IR operates over line of sight, intelligence on
these missiles is not easy to obtain. Furthermore, unless the actual kind of missile
243
 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

is known, a less than optimum or general ‘catch all’ modulation programme will have
to be used. It is not surprising therefore, that with these limitations on both flare
and jammer, IR missiles are such a formidable threat.
Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation — known as the laser
was developed a mere 27 years ago. Yet its application to the battlefield is already
extensive and increasing year by year.
Lasers are used for highly accurate range finding, tracking and weapon guid-
ance. They can be used to designate (illuminate) targets to provide terminal homing
for laser guided bombs and missiles. Lasers can also be used to dazzle, blind and
damage optical sensors — including eyes. When a high level of power is used, they
have the potential to become hard kill weapons in their own right.
Unlike radar, laser beams do not diverge appreciably with range. Laser radiation
possesses two important and unique characteristics — it is pure in that emissions
from a single source occur at the same frequency; it is also coherent in that all
waves are in step in time and space with each other. The result is a highly
concentrated beam of energy.
With these properties, it is not surprising that lasers have been so readily
incorporated into weapon technology. To cope with this new dimension of the EW
threat, laser detection and countermeasures are finding their way into tomorrow’s
requirements. :
Helicopters are particularly vunerable to the ground—air laser threat during
their relatively slow, ‘nap-of-the-earth’ operations. Laser detection and threat
warning is therefore becoming essential to helicopters crossing enemy lines.
However, since a laser beam could be less than a metre in diameter when it strikes
the aircraft skin, detection poses a particular problem. To ensure main beam
detection, laser detector heads would have to be spaced around the airframe at
less than metre intervals. Although such a system could be built into new aircraft,
it is a complex and expensive solution with little application to retrofit programmes
(Figs 10.16 (a) and (b)).
A more practical warning system is therefore likely to use one or two centrally
mounted clusters of detectors to intercept the direct laser beams. Individual detec-
tors have a limited field of view to enable direction of arrival (DOA) to be assessed.
These main beam clusters are then supplemented by secondary beam or scatter
detectors. Scatter detectors sense laser energy reflected from the airframe or by
atmospheric particles. They must therefore have a wide field of view and DOA
cannot be assessed. Nevertheless, all other parameters can be correlated with the
main beam detectors to achieve a high probability of intercept in a practical and
affordable equipment configuration.
Warning equipments must also differentiate between lasers and optical inter-
ference — especially sunlight. It is fortunate that the peculiar characteristics of the
laser — purity and coherence — can be used as sort mechanism. Adjacent frequen-
cies can be checked to ensure they are clear of the signal (purity) and the received
waveform is analysed for coherence.
Finally, having detected and analysed the laser beam, there is still the question
of countermeasures. If laser warning is provided, at least turning away from the
threat and flying lower will reduce vunerability. On slow moving platforms,
deploying smoke or optical chaff will inhibit the laser’s operation. Aircraft optical
sensors can be protected by closing shutters as soon as the beam is detected.
Ultimately, attacking the lasing source with airborne high power laser promises
to be the fastest and most effective means of countering this growing threat.

244
 Thefuture
Fig. 10.16(a) Laser warning
equipment —
direct detector

Fig. 10.16(b) Laser warning

equipment —
indirect
detector. Plessey
Avionics

THE FUTURE

EW is, by nature responsive, innovative and difficult to predict. The speed of

change in the past decade, particularly in processing capacity and capability, has
been astonishing. New dimensions have been added to threat radars, weapons,
countermeasures and methods of detection. Weapons are capable of pin-point
accuracy over ever increasing ranges. ‘Fire and forget’ missiles have become the
norm. EW systems have responded with more efficient detection, better jamming
and increasing automation. In simple terms, EW will grow to meet the new threat,
the latest ECCM measure and the newly discovered technology.

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 Electronic Warfare — an Overview

ECM and ESM must become more integrated and interoperable. RWR and
jammer must work together effectively to detect, classify, counter and reassess
radars with continuously changing parameters. Power must be more efficiently
managed and directed at the threat. New techniques must be evolved to deal with
monopulse, millimetric and more capable radars. Although even more information
will be collected and processed; it must be used to ease the workload of aircrew
by automatic operation and continuous updating of countermeasures. Digital radio
frequency memories (DRFMs) will accurately store parametric information for
instant recall and application.
The integrated electronic warfare system (INEWS) is under development to
meet the needs of future United States aircraft such as the Advanced Tactical
Fighter (ATF). The system is intended*to achieve protection across the whole of
the EM spectrum and will use state-of-the-art technology, avoid unnecessary
duplication of modules and utilise artificial intelligence to ensure a high degree
of integration and interoperability.
Aircraft ECM must be supplemented by innovative off-board devices. Radar
absorbent materials (stealth) will play an increasing role in reducing aircraft detec-
tion ranges and enhancing the effectiveness of ECM. Better ways of detecting and
countering IR and laser systems must be developed. In sum, EW must keep pace
with weapon and threat technologies.
The need for EW is, by and large, undisputed. The sind of several decades
of air warfare are clear. EW is the key to survival in an increasingly hostile air
combat environment. And yet, many front line aircraft throughout the world have
inadequate or obsolete protection equipments. Unless the value of EW is fully
appreciated, capability will continue to be assessed in numbers of aircraft rather
than force survivability. Where budgets, weight and performance are crucial, EW
must be carefully quantified, specified and then qualified. Above all, the capa-
bilities and limitations must be understood if EW is not to be the Cinderella of
avionic systems.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hirst, M. Flight International, Nov 1977.

Johnston, Stephen L. Soviet Electronic Warfare. International Defense Review, 1985.
Price, A. /nstruments of Darkness, Wm Kimber, 1967.
Savage, J. Laser Technology — a Background, Miltronics, 1986.
Schleher, D. C. Introduction to Electronic Warfare, Artech House Inc., 1986.
ieee Robert J. Principles of Electronic Warfare, Prentice-Hall International,
1961.
Van Brunt, Leroy B. Applied ECM Vol. I, Oct., EW Engineering Company,
USA, 1982. The International Countermeasures Handbook, 9th Edition, E W
Communications Inc., 1984. International Defense Review Special Series 8 — Electronic
Warfare, Interavia SA, 1978.

246
CHAPTER 11 FUTURE TRENDS AND
DEVELOPMENTS
GRAHAM WARWICK BSc. News Editor, Flight International.

Graduated in 1976 from Southampton University with an Honours Degree in

Aeronautical Engineering.
After two years with Hawker Siddeley Group Kingston, now British
Aerospace, Mr Warwick became a reporter on Flight International. He has held
various editorial posts on the journal since 1978.

AVIONIC INTEGRATION

Preceding chapters have highlighted the increasing integration at all levels in

avionic systems from the surface of the microchip to the screen of the cockpit
display. It is a trend that shows no signs of abatement.
If there is a single factor driving this trend towards increasing integration, then
it is the rapid advance of microelectronic technology. This is reducing the over-
heads associated with data bus communication — the ‘enabling technology’ for
avionic integration.
The electronics that must be installed in every avionic box capable of using the
data bus have been progressively reduced from several cards to a single card and
now to a set of chips that occupy only the corner of a single card. The benefits
that cheap and easy access to data bus communication bring are enormous.
A ‘first-generation’ avionic architecture has many individual boxes independ-
ently supplied with power and, if necessary, cooling, and individually connected
to a dedicated control panel in the cockpit. Boxes that wish to communicate must
also be individually connected to each other.
A ‘second-generation’ architecture has each box sharing its information with
several others via a one-way digital data link. Such is the principle behind the
ARINC 429 data bus, where each box has a single output bus, but multiple input
buses. Such a bus allows several boxes to be managed from a single multifunction
control panel, however.
A ‘third-generation’ architecture has each box plugged into a bi-directional
digital data bus along which it both transmits and receives information. This is
the principle behind the military 1553B data bus in which a single (dual-redun-
dant) bus connects up to 32 boxes, and the new civil ARINC 629 bus, which
allows up to 120 boxes to communicate.
The next generation could see several changes, including an increasing trend
towards distributed computing and away from individual avionic boxes, or line
replaceable units (LRUs).
A degree of physical integration has already been achieved in some aircraft by
combining the functions of two or more ‘first-generation’ boxes in a single LRU.
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 Future trends and developments

The combining of air data and inertial reference in a single unit in the Airbus
A320 airliner is one example. The combining of flight management and autopilot
functions, also in the A320, is another.
In military aircraft physical integration can take many forms. Perhaps the most
common is the combination of head-up display symbol generation and weapon-
aiming computation in a single box. With increasing computing power becoming
available, there has been a trend to add other functions, such as air data computer,
mission computer, and data bus controller, to the same box.
The result has been a reduction in the number of LRUs, but the next step
could eliminate the familiar ‘black box’ altogether. The latest packaging trends call
for individual modules to be plugged into a rack which supplies the necessary
power, cooling, and communications services. The result is easier maintenance
despite the higher packaging density.
The ‘next-generation’ avionics architecture introduces the concept of common
modules and distributed processing.
Most avionic functions can be broken down into generics — input/output, arith-
metic computation, data and signal processing, etc. — some or all of which are
currently required in every LRU. This increases overheads.
In simple terms the common-module approach breaks down the various LRU
tasks into such basic functions, for each of which a common module is developed.
These modules are then assembled — in racks — into groups able to perform
particular tasks. The modules are connected to a high-speed data bus which is
capable of mass data transportation.
This bus enables tasks to be shared between similar modules distributed
throughout the aircraft. Signal processing, whether for the sensor system or elec-
tronic-warfare suite, can be performed in any one of several common modules.
Ultimately the overall system will not care where a function is performed, only that
it is done efficiently.
The common-module approach provides redundancy without many of the over-
heads currently associated with duplicating or triplicating critical LRUs. It also
allows “graceful degradation’. In the event of a module failing another will assume
its task — with no apparent reduction in the system’s overall capability.
The ability of different avionic systems to communicate rapidly and fully via a
high-speed data bus allows the sharing of scarce aircraft resources, such as good
antenna locations. The principle of shared resources lies behind the concept of
integrated communication/navigation/identification and integrated electronic-
warfare systems.
In the drive to reduce drag and radar signature, there is a need to minimise
the number of external antennas allocated to radio systems. Many of these operate
in the same frequency band. Military IFF and civil ATC transponders, the JTIDS
tactical data link, and GPS satellite navigation all share D band. This brings the
possibility of sharing radio-frequency elements of the communication system, such
as antennas and amplifiers.
Other resources that could be shared include cryptographic units for encoding
and decoding secure IFF, JTIDS, GPS, and radio signals, and digital voice
encoders for JTIDS and V/UHF radio.
The need to share antennas becomes more important if complex ‘adaptive’ aerials
are required to counter jamming. These antennas use a technique called null
steering which shapes the reception pattern to generate notches, or nulls, which
can be steered to blank out any jammers.
While discussing antennas it is worth mentioning the trend towards integration
248
 Cockpit integration

of the various apertures with the airframe in the form of conformal or embedded
aerials.
Already being tested are conformal radars which take the form of many small
transmitter/receiver modules embedded in the leading and trailing edges of the
wing and tail, or along the fuselage sides to provide all-round coverage. These
modules are operated as a phased array to electronically scan the resulting beams.
Figure 11.1 illustrates the principle applied to an orthodox antenna.
The array’s ability to generate multiple beams tailored to different functions can
be usefully employed to enable a radar to perform several functions simul-
taneously, from terrain-following to air target tracking. Similarly conformal phased-
array antennas can be used by the electronic-warfare system to counter several
different jamming sources by generating beams at specific frequencies and power
levels.
Another concept for physical antenna integration is the ‘smart skin’. Recent
development of useable electrically conducting plastics brings the possibility that
antenna patterns can in future be incorporated directly into the composite surfaces
of aircraft — avoiding entirely the drag and radar signature of external aerials.

COCKPIT INTEGRATION

Integration is all about information exchange, and the advent of the digital data
bus has brought with it an information explosion inside the aircraft — and the
problem of how to present that information to the pilot.
The major problem is the limited amount of instrument-panel ‘real estate’ avail-
able in an aircraft, one which is particularly acute in combat aircraft, where panel
space is severely limited.
In our ‘first-generation’ architecture, each avionic box had associated with it
an area of instrument panel containing lights, dials; or switches — or all three. The
pilot had to remember how to operate each system and, if alerted to a problem,
remember where to look on the panel.
Before the advent of the cathode ray tube (CRT) cockpit display all the avail-
able panel space was occupied by controls and displays each having only a single
function. Use of the CRT as a flexible display medium has allowed at least part
of the panel space to be used for more than one function.
The monochrome CRTs used initially had the ability to display clearly only a
limited amount of information at any one time. The advent of colour displays allows
the information density to be increased, enabling the information previously
presented on several instruments to be integrated on a single screen.
The shadow-mask technology of domestic televison sets has been successfully
adapted to provide full-colour cockpit CRTs, but major limitations remain. One
of these is brightness. While perfectly adequate for the shaded cockpit of a trans-
port aircraft, shadow-mask CRTs are not bright enough to be viewed in full day-
light. Their use in a fighter cockpit still poses problems, therefore.
Alternative display technologies are available, if less well developed. One is the
beam-index CRT, which dispenses with the energy-wasting shadow mask. This
produces a bright full-colour picture, but is electronically very complex. Beam-
index cockpit displays are being developed, but their useful life could be limited
because of the rapid advances now being made in flat-panel display technology.
There are many candidate flat-panel technologies, each with its own advantages
and disadvantages, but emerging as the leader is the liquid crystal display (LCD).
This is a solid-state device that is thin and light, requiring little power and in turn
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 Future trends and developments

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generating little heat. It works by modulating ambient light falling on the display
and therefore the brighter the sunlight, the easier it is to read. Conversely, the
LCD needs to be backlit at lower ambient light levels.
LCDs have yet to match the colour capabilities of CRTs, or their resolution and
display area, but it is only a matter of time. Rather than simply displacing the bulky,
power-hungry, heat-generating CRT from the cockpit, however, the LCD could
change the instrument panel beyond all recognition.
The installation advantages of LCDs will allow them to occupy more panel space
than is now allocated to CRTs. They may even displace the conventional electro-
mechanical standby instruments now used. While a single, panel-sized liquid-
crystal display may prove difficult, if not impossible, to produce, the ability to butt
several smaller displays together to provide a totally flexible panel is not in ques-
tion.
If the CRT’s display flexibility can be extended across the entire instrument
panel using LCDs, then the problem of presenting information to the pilot becomes
easier. A more natural form of display, including animated graphics — cartoons —
can be used to convey the status of aircraft systems, or present a complete picture
of the battle.
In combat aircraft, the head-up display has become a vital source of information,
but its position as the primary flight instrument is now being challenged by the
helmet-mounted display.
The HUD’s major limitation is its field of view. Ways of increasing this both
horizontally and vertically have been developed, but the HUD still only provides
information over a relatively small region straight ahead. If the pilot looks outside
its field of view he loses the information it provides on his aircraft, its weapons,
and the target.
The helmet-mounted sight has been around for some time as a relatively simple
device able to project an aiming mark which the pilot can place over a target by
moving his head, the position of which is sensed by one of several means. Head
position can then be used to direct aircraft sensors or weapon seekers, minimising
the need to manoeuvre the aircraft.
While a simple light-emitting diode array can be used to generate the aiming
mark, a CRT is needed to project the type of information normally presented on
the HUD. This poses the problem of helmet weight, particularly in high-G combat.
Solutions include a very small helmet-mounted CRT or fibre-optic cable which
relays the picture from an airframe-mounted CRT.
The design problem becomes particularly acute when the pilot wants to fly at
night. Currently he would find his way using a forward-looking infra-red (FLIR)
sensor image projected on his HUD, augmented by helmet-mounted night vision
goggles for all-round vision. If a helmet-mounted display is to be used, then it must
somehow coexist with the image-intensifying goggles.
Alternatively the FLIR image could be projected on the helmet-mounted display,
using a gimballed sensor slaved to head position so that it always points along the
pilot’s line of sight. All this must be achieved in a helmet that weighs no more,
and preferably less, than today’s unencumbered headgear.
Whether a pilot uses a head-up display, helmet-mounted display, or both, he
must communicate with his aircraft efficiently. In a modern data bus-equipped
aircraft the most likely means of communication will be a keyboard, or keys
bordering a CRT display.
The move to data bus communication has meant a move away from dedicated,
fixed-function control panels — a welcome change, but one not without its prob-
251
 Future trends and developments

lems. Keys are often software-controlled, their functions changing with each key-
stroke as the operator moves down through several layers of control.
Menu-driven displays which take the pilot deeper into the system with each
keystroke are relatively simple to operate. Captions displayed alongside the keys
prompt the next action. But they can be time-consuming. Pilots have also been
shown to be prone to errors when using alphanumeric keypads, such as those used
on flight management systems.
Critical systems, which cannot tolerate operator errors, are usually given
dedicated controls. In combat aircraft this has resulted in a proliferation of
switches on the stick and throttle, where they are instantly accessible throughout
combat.
Two developments could ease the pilot’s workload by providing more natural
communication with the aircraft. ;
The ability of CRTs, and later LCDs, to display full-colour graphics is the key
to successful use of touch-screen technology. The pilot is better able to assimilate
pictures than digits, and selecting a particular weapon by touching the relevant
location on a cartoon representation of the aircraft is quicker and less error-prone
than selecting from rows of digits by pressing the required key.
The use of touchscreens in the heat of combat, when stress, vibration, and high
G degrade the pilot’s pointing ability, is to be questioned, but the technology
certainly has benefits in more quiescent phases of flight. The value of voice control
in combat may also be in doubt but its role in managing cockpit functions in all
other flight phases is not.
Speech recognition technology has made remarkable advances in recent years.
In benign noise environments devices can now recognise numerous words regard-
less of the speaker. In aircraft, however, the noise environment is both harsh and
changing and the vocabulary, if specialised, is large.
Speech recognition systems come in several forms — speaker dependent and
speaker independent; isolated word, connected word, and continuous speech.
The simplest is a device capable of recognising isolated words uttered by a
single speaker — a speaker-dependent isolated-word speech recognition system.
Speaker-dependent systems must be ‘trained’ to recognise the speaker’s voice.
This is achieved by repeating the vocabulary several times to produce a template
for each word to be recognised. On hearing a word the system then compares its
library of speech templates with the utterance in an effort to obtain the best match.
A speaker-dependent connected-word recogniser waits for a pause following
several words and performs the pattern matching process in the gap between bursts
of speech. This allows a more natural form of speech, but presents the system with
the problem of determining where each word in an utterance begins and ends.
A continuous speech recogniser does not wait for a pause, but performs the
recognition process in near real time. In both connected-word and continuous-
speech systems techniques are employed to limit the number of templates ‘active’
at any one time. This increases recognition reliability.
Syntax is used to limit the active templates to a subset of the complete vocab-
ulary. The pilot’s first word, for example ‘Radio’, will determine which subset is
called up for the word, or words, which immediately follow, say ‘Frequency’
followed by a series of digits.
Totally natural communication with the aircraft, in which the relevant words are
plucked from a stream of speech, will probably never be possible. More than likely
the pilot will have to activate the recogniser and be disciplined in speech so as
to limit confusion.
‘

252
 Sensor integration

Failure to recognise a word, or worse the substitution of one word for another
that is similar, are major problems, particularly in the dynamic noise environment
of the cockpit. Recognition accuracies close to 100 per cent are essential if voice
control is to be a help, not a hindrance, to the pilot. For that reason aircraft direct
voice input systems are likely to remain speaker-dependent.
There are ways to improve recognition performance, including adapting the
stored templates to changes in the pilot’s voice as the flight progresses, or taking
inputs from other aircraft systems to put the speech in context.
Another requirement is that voice control co-exists with other means of
man/machine interaction including switches, keys, and touchscreens. The pilot
must be able to use whichever mode of communication best suits his needs, and
be able to move smoothly from one to the other, mixing vocal and tactile commands
without confusing the system.
Voice control — and the associated technology of voice synthesis — plays an
important role in the ‘supercockpit’ concepts now in vogue. In essence these
present the pilot with a totally synthetic image of the outside world, derived from
onboard databases and external sensors, which is independent of outside visibility.
The pilot sees a three-dimensional ‘virtual world’ which is generated by computer
and projected on to a helmet-mounted display so as to fill his vision.
Aircraft controls and displays are represented graphically, superimposed on the
computer-generated outside-world image. Control is by voice or by reaching out
and ‘touching’ the relevant picture.
Thought control, still in the very early stages of exploratory research, shows
some indication of becoming a reality, but not in its ‘science fiction’ form. Instead,
biofeedback could be used to monitor the pilot’s health, and particularly his state
of consciousness. This information could be fed to the flight control system to
prevent the pilot losing consciousness — and control — at high G.

SENSOR INTEGRATION

Even today the combat-aircraft pilot has a surprising diversity of sources of target
information available — preflight intelligence briefings, radar, IFF, radio, radar
warning, and, of course, the ‘Mk | eyeball’. Currently, however, the correlation
of all these sources, and others, to produce a unified tactical picture must take
place within the pilot’s brain — at the same time as he attempts to fly his aircraft.
Sensor integration — or fusion — not only reduces pilot workload, it also expands
coverage, increases confidence in target existence and identity, and is mutually
supportive — different sensors having different strengths and weaknesses.
Sensor ‘fusion’ is the art of combining the various target data sources auto-
matically and presenting the pilot with a unified and complete tactical picture with
all ambiguities resolved. Sensor fusion produces a robust system that is difficult
to jam because all the elements are mutually supportive, the advantages of one
offsetting the disadvantages of another.
Radar is still the primary combat-aircraft sensor, although it is often combined
with IFF to provide target identity and increasingly arduous ‘stealth’ requirements
call for its judicious use, for example, by power management. Additional clues to
target existence and identity can be provided by the radar warning receiver.
Increasingly electro-optical systems are used to augment radar, both to overcome
jamming and to provide covert target detection and tracking. Radar contacts, IFF
responses, and other sensor information are available from co-operating aircraft via
a secure, jam-resistant data link.
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 Future trends and developments

As sensors improve, much more information becomes available, and the corre-
lation task goes beyond the pilot’s capabilities. For example, information on target
identity may be available from the radar, by close examination of the radar signa-
ture, from IFF, from passive electronic surveillance, from electro-optical sensors,
and from the data link.
Particularly important to sensor integration — or blending — are the advances
being made in thermal imagers. Currently these devices have limited range, but
excellent imaging capability. Long-range sensors are being developed, however,
requiring complex signal processing akin to that developed for radar in order to
pick out genuine targets from the background thermal ‘clutter’.
The imaging capability of radar is also being exploited using synthetic-aperture
processing techniques to increase resolution many times, to just a few metres in
some cases. Radar has the advantage that it can see though any weather, but with
it comes the danger of detection.
Other candidate sensor technologies include high-frequency millimetre-wave
radar, which has imaging resolutions approaching those of infra-red, but with
greater ability to penetrate poor weather. Laser radar also shows promise as a
short-range, covert sensor with high resolution because of its narrow beamwidth.
Image recognition has an important role to play in blending the output of
different sensors and providing the pilot with a clear picture of the target.

CONTROL INTEGRATION

Integration of previously discrete aircraft control functions offers significant

benefits. The integration of airliner autoflight and flight management functions has
already been mentioned. This reduces pilot workload and enables fuel-saving
flight profiles to be flown accurately and consistently.
In this case engine control (via autothrottle) has been integrated with flight
control (via autopilot) — albeit with limited authority. Integration of flight and
engine control has significant potential in combat aircraft, where engines and
airframe often work close to their limits. Linking the two control systems allows
the engine management system to anticipate aircraft manoeuvres and so reduce the
artificial margins currently imposed to ensure that engine operating limits are not
overstepped in combat.
In future combat aircraft the engine will be an integral part of the aircraft
control system, with movable intakes and vectoring nozzles contributing signifi-
cantly to the sum of forces and moments in flight. The pitch control power of two-
dimensional vectoring nozzles, for example, is such that flight and propulsion
control must be integrated.
In a vertical or short take-off aircraft where propulsive lift dominates, the
integration of flight and engine control is beneficial, enabling aerodynamic and
propulsive lift to be combined in the most efficient manner. Benefits of integration
can include accurate touch-downs in small spaces in all weathers.
The integration of flight and fire controls also promises significant operational
benefits. Currently the pilot closes the loop between the fire control system
tracking a target and the aircraft’s weapons — manoeuvring the aircraft until the
target is within the lethal envelope of his weapon. At all times he must remember
the limits of his aircraft and his weapon.
With the advent of full-authority electronic flight control it becomes possible
to tie the flight and fire control systems directly together. The flight control
computer does not really care whether a command signal comes from the pilot or
254
 Database integration
another computer, and will not accept any demand that oversteps aircraft limits.
With target tracking provided initially by radar, then with greater precision by
an electro-optical sensor, it is possible to generate line-of-sight error commands
for the flight control system that will bring the weapon to bear automatically. Initial
pointing could be accomplished automatically, therefore, the pilot only taking over
in the final stages, or when the degree of error exceeds the control authority
allocated to the flight control computer.
Integrated flight and fire control also allows weapon release in manoeuvring or
evasive flight, increasing the chances both of destroying the target and of surviving
against hostile defences.
In a future fighter integrated fire, flight, and engine control promises to reduce
pilot workload significantly. Under direction of a weapon system which decides
in which order several targets should be attacked, the aircraft could be flown auto-
matically to the best attack positions.
This is similar to the concept of ‘four-dimensional’ flight management, in which
the aircraft is flown automatically in three dimensions so as to reach prepro-
grammed waypoints at predetermined times, so freeing the pilot to concentrate on
the tactics of his mission. In civil aircraft similar techniques would allow airliners
to achieve preset arrival times, so avoiding delays and easing congestion.

DATABASE INTEGRATION

Advances in digital storage techniques mean that aircraft can now carry vast
amounts of useful data. Modern flight management systems can store information
on all the world’s major runways and navigation aids, for example. Charts covering
the whole of Europe can be stored in a military map generator.
Moving map displays have proved immensely useful to military pilots. Existing
systems are based on filmed maps which are either projected directly upon a cockpit
display or scanned remotely, with the result presented on a multifunction display.
But film maps cannot easily be changed. The digitally generated map is a far
more flexible medium. Colours can be changed, scales can be adjusted, and infor-
mation can be added or deleted.
Maps based on conventional paper charts, digitised and stored on magnetic
tape, laser-scanned optical disc, or in semiconductor memory, are two-dimensional,
however. The addition of height data brings new possibilities.
The elevation data can be derived from the contours on paper charts or from
digital terrain databases available from mapping agencies. Elevation data literally
brings a new dimension to digital maps. Relief maps can be generated, and colour-
coded to show terrain above aircraft height — and therefore to be avoided — in red,
or to highlight where intervening terrain blocks the view of hostile air defences.
Terrain databases can be used during mission planning to automatically chart
a ‘safe’ route through enemy airspace that minimises exposure to air defences. The
same database can be used to generate a three-dimensional image of the route for
pre-flight familiarisation; the same database being plugged into the aircraft before
take-off.
The database that is used to generate maps can be used to navigate the aircraft.
As the aircraft flies along, its radar altimeter traces out a profile of the terrain
directly under the flightpath. This profile is unique, and can be compared with
profiles generated by the on-board terrain database. A match gives the aircraft’s
position, accurate to within 50m, and this can be used to keep the inertial navi-
gation system accurate.
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 Future trends and developments

Furnished with extremely accurate position information the aircraft can be made
to follow the terrain by looking within the database to generate a flightpath that
will keep the aircraft close to, but safely distant from, the ground. In contrast to
terrain-following based on radar, which cannot look behind hills to see what lies
ahead, terrain-following by looking ahead within the database produces a more
ground-hugging flightpath, reducing exposure to hostile defences.
Terrain databases have particular relevance to aircraft which wish to remain
undetected and must therefore avoid all unnecessary emissions — including terrain-
following radar.

KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION ‘

Despite the advances outlined in previous chapters, there are still serious doubts
that the lone fighter pilot can cope with the demands placed on him in a future
air battle. There are moves, therefore, to provide the pilot with an electronic
associate — the so-called silicon copilot — able to handle routine ‘housekeeping’
tasks and to help make, and execute, tactical decisions.
Artificial intelligence is a concept which has been seriously oversold, but the
scepticism the term engenders disguises the fact that knowledge-based, or expert,
systems are making real progress. Computer programmes-which encapsulate the
experience of a human expert are already a reality in ground-based systems, such
as those used for maintenance, and airborne applications are in advanced stages
of development.
Several areas of avionics could benefit significantly from the application of
expert systems, among them complex ‘human’ tasks such as health and usage
monitoring, fault and failure diagnosis, route planning, and target recognition.
Expert systems are at the heart of ‘self-healing’ avionic concepts. The ability
to diagnose failures, determine the consequences, and devise alternatives is a
human one, but one which computers look capable of performing.
One example now being tested is the self-healing flight control system. Modern
combat aircraft have many flight control surfaces, some of which perform similar
functions. The loss of a surface through equipment failure or battle damage need
not, therefore, mean the loss of the mission, or of the aircraft.
In the event of a flight control surface being damaged, an expert system would
diagnose and isolate the fault and devise alternative control-surface configurations.
The system would then advise the pilot if his mission could still be accomplished
and, if not, suggest alternatives. If the damage was particularly severe the system
would advise the pilot to abandon his mission and return to base. He would be
advised of any further deterioration, allowing him to eject once over friendly
territory.
The Pilot’s Associate, or electronic co-pilot, is a much more ambitious application
of expert systems, but one which the US hopes will be mature enough for appli-
cation to its mid-1990s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) (Fig. 11.2).
In ATF, the electronic co-pilot would be the interface between the human pilot
and his aircraft. The pilot and his electronic associate would communicate via
speech recognition and speech synthesis and touch-sensitive three-dimensional
colour graphic displays.
The electronic co-pilot comprises a distributed network of cooperating expert
systems, each with its own knowledge database. At the top of the hierarchy is the
electronic co-pilot itself, acting as system manager under the pilot’s direction.
Beneath the electronic co-pilot are a series of subsystem managers. The situ-
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 Knowledge integration

Fig.11.2 The Advanced ation assessment manager establishes the magnitude and urgency of threats and
Tactical Fighter keeps track files up to date. It cooperates with a beyond-visual-range identification
cockpit will bring manager which identifies targets by comparing their signatures with a library, and
together concepts
such as flat-panel a sensor manager which controls all aircraft sensors.
displays, touch- The four-dimensional flight manager automatically manoeuvres the aircraft into
sensitive screens, the most advantageous beyond-visual-range attack position and exercises control
voice-activated over the flight control and propulsion managers. The mission planning manager
controls and helmet- automatically replans the mission after any unplanned event and suggests back-up
mounted displays
plus an ‘electronic mission objectives if the primary mission cannot be achieved.
co-pilot’ Lockheed The tactical planning manager recommends ways to deal with new threats,
California combining information from the situation-assessment and mission-planning
managers to provide a ranked list of defensive and offensive options.

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 INDEX

Page references in bold indicate photographs, those in italic indicate diagrams,

These are separate indexes for names, [etc.].

accelerometer 10, 11, 166, 167 automatic attitude director 69, 70

active control technology 102, 103, 104, 131 automatic configuration control processor 102
aeronautical public correspondence 200 automatic dependence surveillance 196
aircraft motion sensing unit 166 automatic direction finding 154, 157, 177, 184
air data acquisition 88, 168 automatic landing ‘autoland’ 21, 71, 72, 220
air data computer and inertial reference unit 169 automatic test equipment 29
air data display 82 autopilot
air data inertial reference system 25 Sperry 26
air data module 169 Honeywell 6
Airline Electrical Engineering Committee 23 avionic integration 247
Air Navigation Order (UK) 2
airspeed indicator 2 Battle of Britain 6
air traffic control 67, 96, 150, 179, 200, 222, 226
beat frequency oscillator 157
air transport racking 23, 24, 137
Blind Landing Experimental Unit (RAE) 159
altimeter 2
Boltzmann Constant 207
antenna British Civil Airworthiness Requirements 29
active array 250
British Standards Institution 20
Cassegrain 212, 2/3
built-in test equipment 27, 28, 46, 116, 120
centre feed dish 210, 2/2
bus controller 39
communications 174, 181, 182, 183, 184
bus interface unit 41
conformal array 211, 249
cosecant squared 224
dipole 211 canard configuration 93, 111
offset feed dish 2/2 carrier-sense multiple access clash avoidance 42
planar slotted array 213 cathode ray tube 9, 15, 52, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
radar 203, 206, 209, 210, 217, 232, 238, 239, 248 63,65, 68,,70,.72, 73, 74,76, 79, 809123, 124,
radio see under radio 249, 252
antenna coupler unit 163 thin 60, 6/
Aeronautical Radio Inc 17, 22, 23, 29, 30 shadow mask 58, 60, 249
ARINC characteristics travelling wave 13, 216
404 24 central processing unit 133, 169
BED ASd yidOve Aly Ad OegOl ph 2iyek 2 Joh 410169,.247, circuit integration, large-scale 116
529 36 Certificate of Airworthiness (UK) 20
568 155 Civil Airworthiness Requirements, British 19
629 (DATAC) 37, 42, 62, 247 Civil Aviation Authority (UK) 19, 20, 159
702 «121 cockpit display unit 63, 66, 68
709 155 cockpit voice recorder 142
711 = (154 Colossus 31
DLL 157 colour display, CRT 79, 80, 81, 82
artificial horizon 2, 55, 56 communication navigation and identification 197
attitude direction indicator 54, 56, 57, 62, 65, 71, 72, compass
73, 158, 159 direct reading 53
attitude director 69, 70 gyro 53
attitude heading and reference unit 169, 170 magnetic 2
automatic antenna tuning unit 183, 184 remote reading 53

258
 Index

computers electronic centralised aircraft maintenance ECAM 67,

actuator drive and monitor 102 T3501 4s 10
air data 25, 168, 248 electronic counter-measures 6, 13, 216, 235
analogue 9 electronic data processing 9
digital 9 electronic intelligence 230, 231
elevator/aileron 96 electronic support measures 232
flight augmentation 96 engines
flight management unit 121 CW 47, LLG. 119,120
navigation 78 re-heat 117, 118, 119
spoiler/elevator 96 digital control system/unit 118, 119
weapon aiming 78 full authority digital control 119, 120
computer language 45 indicating and crew alert system 67, 73
ADA 46, 113 main control unit 117, 118
development support environment 46 military 117, 778, 119
COBOL 46 ergonomics 49, 50, 51
CORAL 46 European Organisation for Civil-Aviation
FORTRAN 46 Electronics 19, 20, 22, 30
high-level operating 34, 44, 46 Exocet missile 229
JOVIAL 46, 113
PASCAL 46 fan marker 4
computer memory devices 33, 35 Federal Aviation Administration (USA) 19, 20, 21, 120,
bubble (data bank) 36, 37, 124, 125 156
core 35 fibre-optic techniques, ‘fly by light’ 43, 113, 192
electronically erasable programmable only 36 flight management computer unit 121
electronically programmable read only 36, 124 flux valve/flux gate 165, 166, 169
random access 36, 124 flare decoys 242, 243
read only 184 ‘fly-by-wire’ techniques 17, 18, 72, 73, 96, 98, 100
scratch pad 35, 124 forward-looking infra-red 60, 81, 251
semiconductor 35 frequency synthesis 186, 187, 188, 189
program UV PROM _ 124
working CMOS RAM _ 124 gimbal 11, 167
computer memory, non-volatile 28, 35, 125, 169 gimbal lock 170
control and display unit 123 G-induced loss of consciousness 76
controlled requirement expression 135, 139 glass cockpit 15
course deviation indicator 152, 155 SVrOu 29 105106
crystal video receiver 232, 233, 234 gyro gunsight 9

data, autonomous transmission and communication. hands-on-throttle and stick control 145
(ARINC 629) 42, 43 helmet-mounted sight 78, 80, 251
data base integration 255 horizontal situation indicator 53, 54, 62, 65, 150, 153,
data bus/data modulation 14, 25, 33, 37, 51, 63, 127, 155
128, 131, 138,-169
data transfer unit 141 identification, friend or foe 81, 199, 226, 248, 253, 254
direct voice input 57, 65, 76 inertial platform 117
directional gyro 2 infra-red picture 77
display input/output unit 169
gas plasma 61 Institution of Electrical Engineers (UK) 194
head-down 17, 80 Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
head-up 9, 17, 62, 71, 72, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, (UK) 194
143, 248, 251 instruction set architecture 45
integrated 74 instruments
liquid crystal 56, 60, 62, 251 ‘basic six’ panel 54
multi-function controls and display 68, 73, 74, 75, electromechanical 51, 53, 55, 56
79, 80 gyro-mechanical 55
distance measuring equipment 153, 155, 156, 202 stand-by 82, 83
Doppler sensors 18 integrated circuits 32, 188
very high performance 33
electromagnetic interference 175 very large scale 33
electronic associate, ‘silicon co-pilot’ concept 82, International Civil Aviation Organisation 20, 68, 220
256 International Telecommunication Union 176
electronic attitude director 69 inverse scan modulation 238

259
 Index

jammer mission adaptive wing project 106

airborne self-protection 235, 239, 240 moving target indicator 241
Sky Shadow 241 multi-purpose colour display 79, 81
stand-off 239 multi-function display 25, 65, 153
jamming multiplex data transmission 128
broad band 235, 236
communications 240 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
deception 229, 235, 238 (USA) 25, 65, 163
escort 239 National Physical Laboratory (UK) 7
home-on 235 NATO Air Force 146
infra-red 242, 243 Navigation aids and systems
noise 235, 236, 237, 238 area nav 12, 68, 156,.180
spot 235 attitude heading reference system 169, 170, 171
swept spot 235, 236 automatic direction finding 154, 157, 177, 184
Joint Airworthiness Requirements 20, 21, 30, 52 Cossor Compass 9000 display, Gatwick airport 160
joint tactical information distribution system 177, Decca 191
196, 197, 198, 199, 248 distance measuring equipment 68
Doppler 11, 12, 164, 165
klystron 209, 215, 219 Gee 8, 12
keypads 63 global positioning (NavStar) 12, 161, 163, 164, 248
keys, soft 63 HyS8, 224
laser 13, 37, 171, 242, 244, 254 hyperbolic 12, 16, /6/
ring gyro 13, 26, 171, 172 inertial 10, 11, 12, 65, 125, 166, 167
laser warning equipment 244, 245 instrument landing 68, 71, 96, 122, 126, 153, 158,
light emitting diode 51, 52, 57, 59, 60, 61, 65 159,160, 162;.174,177;,.199
line replaceable unit 27, 28, 57, 82, 131, 137, 138, Loran 12; 161; 162,163
139, 169, 247 nay vertical 153
London Air Traffic Control Centre 151 non-directional beacon 150, 153, 154, 156, 177
Lorenz landing aid 55 Oboe 12
low cycle fatigue counter 140 Omega 12, 161, 163, 177
Omega VLF 12
magnetron 9, 209, 218 plan position indicator 151
maintenance data panel 131 radio direction/distance magnetic indicator 1/52, 155,
Manchester bi-phase format 39 156
marker beacon 12, 70 radio magnetic indicator 53, 150, 151, 152, 154,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 166 157
master armament selector switch 145 relative bearing indicator 150, 151, 157
mean time between failures 120 tactical air navigation 68, 156, 177, 197
memory devices 33, 35 VHF omni-directional radio range 152, 153, 154,
bubble (data bank) 36, 37, 124, 125 [55n16bal T1979 -18G221
core 35 VOR/TACAN/DME 68, 156
electronically erasable programmable only 36 VOR, terminal 68
electronically programmable read only 36, 124 Norden bomb sight 6
program UV PROM 124
random access 36, 124 operating languages, computer, high level 34, 44, 46
scratch pad 35, 124
semi-conductor 35 PAVE PILLAR project 45, 137
working CMOS RAM_ 124 Penetrate (Ferranti) 79, 81, 82
memory, non-volatile 28, 35, 125, 169 pi-filter network 183
microphone pilot associate concept 82, 256
carbon granule 189 pitot static sensors 88, 89, 168
electromagnetic 189 powered flying control unit 102
noise cancelling 189 program loading unit 35
microelectronics 14 pulse code modulation 193
Mil Specifications
MIL STD 17 radar
1553: 139; 11 airborne early warning 202, 222, 223
1553B 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 127, 131, 133, 141, 247 airborne interception 7, 202, 222
1750 A 35, 45, 46 air-to-surface vessel 78
MIL STD-1750 146 air-sea warfare (anti-submarine) 222
Ministry of Defence (UK) 34, 46, 128 Doppler/pulse Doppler 13, 17, 207, 209, 215, 218,

260
 Index

219, 221, 222, 241, 242 automatic flight control 29, 73, 152, 173
ground collision avoidance 225 digital 170
H,S ground mapping 8, 224 automatic flight guidance 65
identification, friend or foe IFF 81, 199, 226, 248, automatic landing ‘autoland’ 21, 71, 72, 220
253, 254 automatic management radio and intercom /9/
monopulse 213, 214, 223, 225 control and stability augmentation 100, /0/, 102
monostatic 216 digital engine control 118, 119
multistatic 216 electronic instrument 22, 26, 29, 51, 55, 57, 60, 62,
navigation/attack 223, 224 CTA AE VRS OE:
primary 216, 220, 221 electronic flight instrument 26, 29, 50, 55, 124, 152,
propagation 203 153
pulse see radar, Doppler engine indicating and crew alert 67, 73
reconnaissance 222, 226, 227 engine management control 122
secondary 216 flight control 131, 254, 325
secondary surveillance 202, 220, 221, 226 flight management control 36, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68,
sideways looking airborne 224 M2122 oe 24 e126) 127 plo0 elo 3n1 63
terrain clearance following 225, 226 health and usage monitoring 72, 116, 140, /4/, 142
weather 160, 219, 220 integrated electronic warfare 246
radar scanner 206 ‘intelligent’ avionics 98
radar warning receiver 232, 234, 234 micro-wave landing 154, 159
radio multi-function information distribution 197
amplitude modulation 178 stores management 143, 144, 146
antenna 181, 182, 183, 184, 249 structural usage monitoring 142
antenna matching system 182, 183 utilities management 12, 13, 115, 128, 131, 132,
antenna automatic tuning unit 184 134g155,.135
plug-in crystals 186 weapon/stores management 116
radio detection and ranging (radar) 7,9
Royal Aerospace Establishment (formerly Royal Aircraft Telecommunication Research Establishment, Bawdsey
Establishment) 65, 142, 171 (UK) 6
Royal Air Force 6, 12, 53, 54, 117, 140 Tempest requirements 191, 192
thermal imagery 81
Sagnac effect 171 thermionic valve 14, 31
satellite tele-communication 200 thin tube display 60, 61
satellite, geo-stationary 200 tolerancing 175
self-healing avionics 256 touch screen 63
semi-automatic functional requirements analysis 47, touch technology 63, 64
135, 140 transponder 155, 220, 221, 248
sensor Triad laser gyro 171
inertial 90, 166 trimmable horizontal surface actuator 96
pitot static 88, 89, 90 turn and bank indicator 55
sensor integration 253 turn and slip indicator 2
side stick control 73, 74, 96, 97 Type Approval testing 176
signals intelligence 230, 231
smart probes 90 UHF/VHF transmitter/receiver 179, 180
smart skin 249 United States Air Force 34, 44, 127, 137, 190
Society of Automotive Engineers (USA) 45 United States Defense Department 12, 166
Sperry Gyrosyn compass 166 United States Navy 9, 12, 113
Sperry Zero Reader 158
stability augmentation 10 versatile digital analyser 14
standard instrument departure 67, 68, 150 voice synthesis and systems vocoder 174, 189, 193,
standard terminal approach 67, 68, 150 199, 252, 253
static source error correction 169
strapdown inertial platform 167 weapon aiming mode selection 143
symbol generation 23, 25, 61 Wild Weasel aircraft 229
symbology 9, 60, 62, 66, 76 window (chaff) 8, 13, 17, 229, 241, 242
systems management processor 131, 132, 133, 134
Systems other than navigation yaw damper 10
Automatic communication and recording 142, 149,
196

261
 INDEX OF NAMES

Beamont, W/Cdr Roland 32 Powers, Gary 13

Bowen, Dr E.G. 7
Sperry, Lawrence 23
McCurdy, J.D. A. 2
Trenchard, Lord 6
Doolittle, General James 56
Watson-Watt, Dr Sir Robert vi, 7
Post, Wiley 5 Wright brothers 1, 52

Ww 02 =
ieeg yet
miss :
 INDEX OF AIRCRAFT

Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde 116, 117 DH98 Mosquito 6, 7

Airbus Industrie Douglas Aircraft
A300 37, 66, 69, 97 DC Se 6, 110
A310 37, 66, 69 DGS eel.t
AS bd, 28.37, 05, 66,69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 93, DCc10 11
95, 96, 97, 123, 169, 248
Airship Industries Skyship 600 113, 114 Fokker Aircraft Corpn F50 29
Armstrong Whitworth
Whitley 8 General Dynamics Corpn
ATR 42/72 25, 29 YF16 16
A.V. Roe (Avro) Vulcan 85 F16 Falcons 13539; 77, 80, 1095239
Grumman Corpn
Bristol Aeroplane Company A6 239
Beaufighter 6, 12 Hellcat 9
Blenheim 6 F14A Tomcat 113, 239
Boxkite 2
Britannia 116 Handley Page
British Aircraft Corporation TSR 2. 14, 31, 32, 116 Halifax 6, 8
British Aerospace plc Heyford vi, 7, 217
BAe 146 93, 94 Hawker Siddeley Aviation
EAP 47, 82, 85, 100, 105, 106, 707, 108, 112, 118, Nimrod 31
130, 15171 320133,.134. 135. 136,137, 138, Trident 140, 159
139 Hawker Aircraft Co Hurricane 6
BAe Harrier 117
BAe Hawk 140, 145, 146 Junkers Ju 88 6
BAe Sea Harrier 36 Lockheed Corpn
Boeing Airplane Company Vega ‘Winnie Mae’ 5
B17 6 ez 3
B 247 6 YEZ2A 112
B 707 11 L-1011 TriStar 11, 121
B 747 11, 127, 165, 200
B57 215,716, 37, 66,120 21598173 McDonnell Douglas Corpn
B60 5152 16.2175.375-065173 F15 Eagle 13,109,112
Baji 43 AV-8B Harrier 39, 78, 79, 239
MD11 25, 28
Consolidated Vultee Aircraft MD80_ 22, 66
B24 Liberator 6 Phantom ‘Wild Weasel’ EWA/C 229, 239
Catalina 8
Curtiss M/D Northrop F18 39, 109, 113, 239
seaplane 2 Messerschmitt Me 110 6
flying boat 2, 3
Curtiss Wright Corpn Condor 4, 5 North American Aviation
F86D Sabre Dog 143
de Havilland Aircraft Co. F100 Super Sabre 10, 113
DH106 Comet 171 Northrop Corpn YF 23A 112

263
 Index of aircraft

Panavia Tornado 13, 36, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 99, 101, Stirling 6
102, 103, 117, 118, 128 Sunderland 8
Rockwell International Vickers Vanguard 116
A-5 Vigilante 9, 14 Vickers Supermarine Spitfire 6
Bl 39, 88
Westland Lynx 229
Sepecat Jaguar 36
Short Brothers Zeppelin airship 4
Belfast 116

lick) iT Ail 20) OOf 28 C8 Se) - Ag

i . aay. t ’ mu » ah ety Mi) AAT S54 45h Ob
7 - aescrttyal a> frr you" podwe!l
Bo |
 INDEX OF RESEARCH AIRCRAFT

advanced tactical fighter (USAF) 45, 119, 246, 256 LHX Program US Army 45
advanced tactical aircraft (USN) 45
McDonnell Douglas F15 STOL manoeuvre technology
BAe Experimental Aircraft Project 47, 82, 85, 105, demonstrator 109, 7/0, 112, 119
108, 128 McDonnell Douglas/Northrop F/A18 113
Messerschmitt Bolkow Blohm CCV F104 105
DARPA/Grumman X29 88, 109, 111
DARPA/Rockwell/MBB X31 109, 7/1, 113 Sepecat Jaguar FBW active-control demonstrator
(BAe) 100, 102, 703, 106, 111
General Dynamics AFTI mission adaptive wing
F111 106, 109, 770, 111
 INDEX OF GAS TURBINES AND
PROPULSION UNITS ~

Bristol Turbo-Union RB199_ 117, 118, 119

Olympus 116
Proteus 116 United Technology Pratt & Whitney PW2037 120
Unducted fan 120
International Aero Engines V2500 Superfan 120

Rolls-Royce Pegasus 117, 118, 119

 AVIONIC
SYSTEMS
Avionics is a broad subject of ever-increasing complexity. Aircraft and
engine control systems, navigation and communication systems are
such highly specialised areas that engineers and scientists working on
one particular aspect may be unaware of the developments occurring
in the others.

This book is designed to bridge the gap between these areas and has
been written by some of the leading avionics experts in the field.
Subjects covered in the specially commissioned contributions include
the evolution of avionics, systems design, digital technologies, and
future trends and developments.

Avionic Systems will appeal to a wide technical and semi-technical

readership including students, managers, engineers and scientists
within the aviation and aerospace related industries. The breadth of
information contained in the book will ensure that it is a valuable
reference source for many years to come.

Front cover photograph reproduced by kind permission of Image in

Industry Ltd.

ISBN 0-582-01881-1

ee> |Longman
mmm ocientific& :
we |Technical 9 "780582"01881