Military Communications and Information Technology: A Trusted ...

Modern Low Cost Aircraft Instruments
Radek Bystricky 1 , Premysl Janu 2
1 Department of Aerospace Electrical Systems
2 Department of Radar Technology, Faculty of Military Technology,
University of Defence, Brno, Czech Republic,
{radek.bystricky, premysl.janu}@unob.cz
Abstract: The usage of multifunction displays (MFD) in nowadays aircraft boards is about to increase.
They are usually able to show a big number of relevant information at once, so their contribution
cannot be denied. But it is hard to imagine that, in case of emergency (e.g., space disorientation),
the pilot will browse between pages on the display. In this case, he immediately needs to know basic
information about speed, altitude, etc. and will therefore rather rely on conventional gauges instruments.
This paper therefore deals with the design and development of classical and especially cheap
gauge instrument connected the on-board data bus.
Keywords: MFD; aircraft instrument; CAN; CANaerospace; microcontroler, Time-triggered
I. Introduction
First we need to ask ourselves what must be an inexpensive aircraft instrument
able to do, except that it must be accurate, reliable and rugged. It must be able to
measure the flight parameter with sufficient accuracy at first. It is also advantageous
if this flight parameter can be transmitted to other devices using some kind
of a data bus. Finally, it must have sufficiently precise scale with a fine gauge step
and be able to detect their own faults and report them.
II. Hardware conception
Our concept is based on the division of the device into individual components
that can exist independent to the measured flight parameter. This concept is adopted
from real instruments build by Czech company MESIT and used for example on
the aircraft L159 ALCA, see Figure 1. But the concept itself is the only thing what
ours instruments replicates [1]. The rest differs significantly.
Basic components are:
• Power block.
• Signal processing block.