CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
This present period in history may well be called the "The age of
electronics" or the "electronic revolution" because electricity and
electronics have become vital in every facet of modern life. The food you
eat, your clothes, even the air you breathe, virtually everything you take
for granted during a typical day has been affected by the modern age of
electronics. This is particularly true in the aviation and aerospace fields
because all modern aircraft and space vehicles are largely dependent upon
electronics and electricity for communications, navigation, and control.

On modern aircraft electricity performs many functions, including

the ignition of fuel in turbine engines, the operation of communication and
navigation systems, the movement of flight controls and analysis of system
performance.

1.1 Scope of Electrical Engineering:

Electrical engineering includes the two main areas of information
systems and the electrical power systems. The information systems include
all those applications of store, transmit and process information. Examples
of which:
Tape recording: Information storage.
Radio broadcasting: Communication.
Computing: Information processing.

The power systems transmit power by electrical means to transfer

energy from one place to another. For example, potential energy may exist
in the form of water storage behind a dam (like high dam in Aswan). The
water falls through turbines producing mechanical power. No one could
dream of transmitting this power to a distant city by means of long rotating
mechanical shafts. Instead, it is converted by generators into electrical
form, transmitted by high voltage transmission lines (T.L.), and brought by
distribution systems into homes and industries. The network of wires and
machines being used here is called an electrical power system.

1.2Applications of Electricity and Electronics in The

Aircraft:

Modern aircraft depends upon the proper functioning operation of

their electrical systems for safe and satisfactory operations. Electrical
systems are required for power plant control, systems control,
navigation, communications, flight control, lights, and other functions.
The electrical system of an aircraft consists of the generation, storage
and distribution of electrical power and associated control and
protective devices. The electrical system must be properly designed to
be able to furnish the required power at the proper voltage to each load
circuit for the safe operation of the aircraft.

The use of radio equipment and avionics in general increased

markedly for all types of aircraft during the past thirty years. It is
required that all aircraft operating in high traffic areas be equipped with
the two-way radio for communication with air traffic controllers and
tower operators. The development of solid state and digital electronics
technology has made it possible to install highly complex and
sophisticated systems for communication, navigation and automatic
flight control in all type of aircraft.

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 Avionics is a word derived from the combination of aviation and
electronics. It was first used in the USA in the early 1950s and has since
gained wide scale usage and acceptance. The term avionic system or
avionic subsystem is used in texts to mean any system in the aircraft,
which is dependent on electronics for its operation, although the system
may contain electro-mechanical elements.

The avionics industry is now a major multi-billion dollars industry

world-wide and the avionics equipment in a modern military or civil
aircraft can account for around 30 % of the total cost of the aircraft, and
can be over 75 % of the total cost in the case of an airborne early
warning aircraft such as AWACS.

The avionic systems are essential to enable the flight crew to carry
out the aircraft mission safely and efficiently. Avionic systems installed
in an aircraft can include communication radio, navigation systems,
whether detection systems and flight management systems (FMSs).

1.2.1Communications:

The need for reliable two-way communications between ground

bases and the aircraft or between aircrafts is essential for air traffic
control (ATC). A radio transmitter and receiver equipment was in fact
the first avionic system to be installed in an aircraft and goes back as
far as 1909. The communications radio suite on modern aircraft is a
very comprehensive one and covers several operating frequency bands.
Long range communication is provided by high frequency (HF) radios
operating in the band 2-30 MHz. Near to medium range communication

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is provide in civil aircraft by very high frequency (VHF) radios
operating in the band 30-100 MHz, and in military aircraft by ultra high
frequency (UHF) radio operating in the band 250-400 MHz.

Satellite communication (SATCOM) systems are also being

installed in many modern aircraft and these are able to provide very
reliable worldwide communication.

1.2.2 Navigation Systems:

Accurate navigation information, that is aircraft's position, ground

speed and track angle (direction of motion of the aircraft relative to true
north is clearly essential for the aircraft's mission, whether civil or
military. Navigation systems can be divided into dead reckoning (DR)
systems and position fixing systems, both types are required in the
aircraft. Dead reckoning navigation system (DR) derive the aircraft's
present position by estimating the distance traveled from a known
position from knowledge of the speed and direction of motion of the
aircraft. They have the major advantages of being completely self
contained and independent of external systems. An example of DR
systems is the inertial navigation system (INS). This is the accurate and
widely used.

The position fixing systems used are now are mainly radio
navigation systems based on satellite or ground based transmitters.
Suitable receiver in the aircraft with a supporting computer is then used
to derive the craft's position from the signals received from the
transmitters.
The prime position fixing system is without doubt GPS (global
positioning system). This is a satellite navigation system which has

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provided a revolutionary advance in navigation capability since the
system started to come into full operation in 1989.
There are also radio navigation aids such as (VOR/DME) VHS
Omni-range and distance measuring equipment which provide the range
an bearing (R/Ө) of the aircraft from ground transmitters located to
provide coverage of the main air routes.
VOR is an electronic navigation system that enables a pilot to
determine the bearing of the VOR transmitter from any position in its
service area. This is possible because the VOR ground station or
transmitter continually broadcasts an infinite number of directional
radio beams or radials. The VOR signal received in an airplane is used
to operate a visual indicator from which the pilot determines the
bearings of the VOR station with respect to the airplane.

DME (distance measuring equipment) when operates with VOR

makes it possible for a pilot to determine the distance of the aircraft for
a particular VOR/DME station.
Approach guidance for the airfield/ airport in conditions of poor
visibility is provided by the instrument landing system (ILS) or by the
later microwave landing system(MLS).
A full navigation system in an aircraft is hence a very comprehensive
one and can include INS, GPS, VOR/DME,MLS.

1.2.3 Weather detection system:

Weather radar is installed in all civil airlines and also in many

general aviation aircrafts. The radar looks ahead of the aircraft and is
optimized to detect water droplets and provide warning of storms and
cloud turbulence, So that the aircraft can avoid such turbulent

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 conditions if possible. These radars can also generally operate in ground
mapping and terrain avoidance modes.

1.2.4 Flight management systems (FMS):

Navigation management system compromises the operation of all
the radio navigation aid systems and the communication of data from all
the navigation sources, such as the GPS and the INS systems to provide the
best possible estimate of the aircraft position, ground speed and track. The
system then derives the steering commands for the autopilot so that the
aircraft automatically follows the planed navigation route, including any
changes in heading. The autopilot and the FMS have been grouped together
because of the very close degree of integration between these systems on
modern civil aircraft.

1.3 Conductors, Insulators, and Semiconductors:

For a material to be a good conductor of electric current it must
contain a large number of electrons free to move about in the material, such
as copper. The smallest piece of copper or aluminum is one atom. The atom
is the basic building block of matter, and the different characteristics of
different substances can be attributed to the structure of individual atoms.
The Bohr model of a copper atom is shown in Fig. 1.2

Nucleus
29 protons

34 neurons
2
electrons

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 8
electrons

18
electrons

1
electron

Fig.1.2 The Bohr model of a copper atom.

Basic atomic particles

Particle Charge (coulomb) Mass (gram)

Electron -1.6*10-19 9.108*10-28
Proton +1.6*10-19 1.672*10-24
Neutron None 1.675*10-24

Since each atom is electrically neutral there must be the same

number of protons in the nucleus as there are planetary electrons orbiting
the nucleus (29 in copper atom).The electrons are distributed in a very
definite pattern .This pattern is governed by the total number of electrons
permissible in each orbit around the nucleus. The orbital rings of shells are
called the K, L, M, N, O, P and Q.

Shells of the orbital electrons

Shell K L M N O P Q
Maximum number of 2 8 18 32 18 18 8
electrons

The outer shell of any atom can never contain more than eight
electrons. The valence of an atom is determined by the number of electrons
required to fill the outer shell (to be 2 or 8 electrons). For copper atom its

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valence is +1. The copper atom has only one electron in its valence shell,
which is very weakly bounded to the nucleus as it is at a further distance
from it. In a solid piece of copper, all of the valence electrons are free from
their parent atoms and they form a cloud of free electrons, which drift
randomly throughout the piece of copper. The cloud of free electrons in a
metal like copper, silver, or aluminum accounts for the fact that it is a good
conductor of electric current.

Material approximate number of free electrons per cubic inch

Copper 1.4*1024
Silver 1.47*1024
Aluminum 8.36*1023

Copper is most widely used metal in the construction of electrical

conductors. It is easily drawn into wire. Silver is a somewhat better
conductor as copper since it has about 5% more free electrons per unit
volume than copper but it is expensive. Aluminum is increasing in
popularity as an electrical conductor since it is much lighter and less
expensive than copper, but it contains only about 60 % as many free
electrons per unit volume as copper.

An insulator is just the opposite of conductor. It is the material

whose electrons are tightly bounded to their nuclei. There are no free
electrons. Since there are nearly always impurities in any material,
therefore even the best insulator will conduct some electric current.
Examples of good insulating materials are paper, rubber, glass plastic and
mica. They are also referred to as dielectrics as they can be used to store
electric charge.

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 The elements carbon, germanium and silicon, which have valence
+4 (or -4) form covalent bonds which are formed when atoms share
electrons. This group of elements forms a very stable crystalline structure
by means of covalent bonding. These elements are neither good insulators
nor good conductors. They are in a special class and are called
semiconductors. The electrical characteristics of pure crystalline
germanium and silicon can be the controlled addition of certain elements
such as arsenic or aluminum. In this fashion, the modern semiconductor
devices such as transistors and diodes are constructed.