INTRODUCTION TO

AVIONICS
UNIT 1

R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 SYLLABUS

 Need for avionics in civil and military

aircraft and space systems – Integrated
avionics and weapon systems – Typical
avionics subsystems - Design approaches
and recent advances - Application
Technologies.

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 INTRODUCTION

AVIONICS
 Combination of aviation and electronics
 Avionics are the electronic systems used on aircraft, artificial
satellites, and spacecraft. The term is coined from Aviation-
Electronics.
 Avionic systems include communications, navigation, the display and
management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that
are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 The electro-mechanical system although they may have associated
electronics
 In case of military or civil aircraft avionics equipment cost around
30% of the total cost of aircraft.
 The avionics systems are essential to enable the flight crew to carry
out the aircraft mission safely and efficiently.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
WHY AVIONICS ?

To enable the flight crew to carry out the aircraft mission safely and efficiently

Mission is carrying passengers to their destination (Civil Airliner)

Intercepting a hostile aircraft, attacking a ground target, reconnaissance or

maritime patrol (Military Aircraft

Increased safety

Improved aircraft performance and control and handling and reduction in

maintenance cost

In the military case, the avionics systems are also being driven by a
continuing increase in the threats posed by the defensive and offensive
capabilities of potential aggressors
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Need for Avionics
Civil aircraft

 In the case of civil aircraft, the mission is the carrying of the passengers to
their destination.
 For better flight control, performing computations and increased control over
flight control surfaces.
 For navigation, provide information using sensors like Altitude and Head
Reference System (AHRS).
 Provide air data like altitude, atmospheric pressure, temperature , etc.
 Increased safety for crew and passengers.
 Reduction in aircraft weight which can be translated into increased number of
passengers or long range.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 All weather operation and reduction in aircraft maintenance cost.
 The need for avionics in civil aircraft is to meet the mission requirements
with the minimum of flight crew.
 This is made possible by reducing the crew workload by automating the task,
which is used to be carried out by the navigator and flight engineer.
 Reduction of weight is very important because that can be translated into
more passengers or longer range on less fuel.
 Reduce crew work load.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Need for Avionics
Military aircraft
 Avionics in fighter aircraft eliminates the need for a second crew member like
navigator, observer etc., which helps in reducing the training costs.
 A single seat fighter is lighter and costs less than an equivalent two seat
version.
 Improved aircraft performance, control and handling.
 Reduction in maintenance cost.
 Secure communication.

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Need for Avionics
Spacesystems

 Fly-by wire communication system used for space vehicle's attitude and
translation control.
 Sensors used in the space craft for obtaining data.
 Autopilot redundancy system.
 On-board computers used in satellites for process

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
INTEGRATED AVIONICS AND
WEAPON SYSTEM
 Avionic system generally comprises a number of smaller sub-systems which are
combined to form a overall system.
 The combination, interconnection and control of individual sub-system so that
overall system can carry out task effectively is called “System Integration”
Eg: Coupling bomb sight to the autopilot
 The aircraft, weapons and avionics system required by the crew to carry out the
mission effectively must thus be integrated.
 The aircraft must be able to operate from aircraft carrier in all weather, find
target, attack it with suitable weapon, with high probability of success.
 To minimize the probability of detection and altering the enemy’s defenses, the
aircraft needs to approach target at high Sub-sonic speeds (500 – 600 knots), at
very low level of height of 100 ft above sea level to stay below radar horizon of
target as long as possible. Knot = 1 nautical mile/hour; 1 nautical mile = 1.852 KM

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
The avionic equipment fit comprises
 RADAR – target acquisition in all weather condition

 Doppler – accurate velocity sensor for Dead Reckoning navigation

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
AHRS (Air data Heading Reference System)
 It consists of sensors on 3 axes that provide heading, attitude and yaw information for
aircraft
 Altitude and heading information for pilot and displays, navigation computer, weapon
aiming computer, autopilot

Air Data Computer

 An air data computer (ADC) is an essential avionics component found in
modern aircraft. Height, calibrated airspeed , true airspeed mach number
info for pilot display , weapon aiming, DR navigation, autopilot

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Radio Altimeter
 (measures attitude above terrain beneath a/c or spacecraft)
 Provides distance between plane and ground directly)
 Very low level flight profile during attack phase and all weather operation

Navigation Computer
 Essential for mission

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 Autopilot
 Reduce workload of pilot

Weapon aiming Computer

 Essential for mission

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HUD
 Advantage of HUD and weapon
aiming for low level attack

Stores Management System

 Control and release of weapons

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Electronic Welfare System
 Radar warning receives ,
radar jamming equipment
essential for survivability
in hostile environment

Identification System(IFF)
 Essential to avoid
attack by friendly forces

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Radio Navigation aids
 Location of parent ship
on return from mission

 Communication radio suite

 Essential for communicating to parent ship and co-operating a/c
 A significant integration was required between another sub-system
 (eg) weapon arriving System requires integration of HUD weapon aiming
Computer
 AHRS
 Air Data Computer
 Radar System

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
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 AVIONICS SUBSYSTEM

 The main avionic

subsystem has been
grouped into five layers
according to their role
and functions. This
comprise of displays,
communication, data
entry control and flight
control system.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
  DISPLAYS
 The display system provide the visual interface between the pilot and the
aircraft systems and comprise of head up displays (HUDs), helmet mounted
displays (HMDs) and head down displays (HDDs).
 The HUD now provides the primary display for presenting the essential flight
information to the pilot and in military aircraft has transformed weapon
aiming accuracy.
 The HUD can also display a forward looking infrared(FLIR) video picture one
to one with the outside world from a fixed FLIR imaging sensor installed in the
aircraft.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 Advantage of HUD is that it project the display information information into
pilot’s field of view, so that the pilot can concentrate on outside world.
 In HMD or HUD on helmet the information can be presented to pilot when
looking under any direction.
 NVG( Night viewing goggles) also be integrated onto the HMD, which provides
complementary right vision capability enabling the aircraft to operate at
night or poor visibility .
 Multifunction color display provides primary primary flight displays (PFD) of
height, airspeed, mach number, vertical speed, artificial horizon, pitch angle,
bank angle, heading, velocity vector.
 They provide the navigation displays, or horizontal situation indicator (HSI)
displays, which show the aircraft position and track relative to the destination
or waypoints together with the navigation information and distance and time
to go.

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
COMMUNICATION

 The two way communication between the ground bases and the aircraft or
between aircraft is self evident and is essential for Air traffic control(ATC).
 In civil aircraft, near to medium range communication is provided by VHF
radio operating in the band of 30-100 MHz.
 In military aircraft, communication is provided by UHF radio operating in the
band of 250-400 MHz.
 SATCOM systems are also being
installed in many modern aircraft
to provide world wide communication.
 Communication radio suite on
modern aircraft is a very comprehensive
one and covers several operating
frequency bands
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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 Long range –HF radios operating in the band 2 – 30 Mhz
 Near to medium range (civil aircraft) by VHF radios operating in the band 30-
100 Mhz
 VHF and UHF are line of sight propagation systems
 Equipment is usually at duplex level of redundancy
 VHF radios are generally by triple x level on a modern airliner

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
DATA ENTRY AND CONTROL

 Data entry and control systems are essential for the crew to interact with the
avionics systems.
 Such systems range from keyboards and touch panels to the use of direct
voice input(DVI) control, exploiting speech recognition technology and voice
warning systems exploiting speech synthesizers.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
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Flight Control:

 Flight control system implements electric system in two areas, namely

• Auto stabilization system
• Fly by wire control system

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
AUTOSTABILISATION SYSTEM
 Most swept wing jet aircraft exhibit a lightly damped short period oscillatory motion
about the yaw and roll axes at certain height and speed conditions.

 It requires at least a yaw auto- stabilizer system to damp and suppress this oscillatory
motion. A roll auto stabilizer system may also be required.

 The short period motion about the pitch axis can be damped using pitch auto stabilizer
system.

 Most combat aircraft and many civil aircraft in fact requires three axis auto-
stabilization systems to achieve acceptable control and handling characteristics across
the flight envelope.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
FLY BY WIRE SYSTEM

 FBW flight control provides continuous automatic stabilization of aircraft by

computer control of control surfaces from appropriates motion sensors.
 The system can be designed to give the pilot a manoeuvre command control
which provides excellent control and handling characteristics across the flight
envelope.
 Carefree manoeuvring
characteristics can also
be achieved automatically
limiting the pilots
commands according to
aircraft state Enables a
lighter, higher performance
aircraft designed with
relaxed stability
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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 Good consistent handling which is sensibly constant over a wide flight
envelope and range of load conditions
 Continuous automatic stabilization of the aircraft by computer control of the
control surfaces
 Autopilot integration
 Ability to integrate additional controls automatically such as Leading edge
slats/flaps and trailing edge flaps to generate additional lift
 Elimination of mechanical control sruns , Small control stick
 Ability to exploit aerodynamically unstable configuration
 Aerodynamics versus stealth – the concept of reducing the radar cross section
 Very high integrity , a failure survival system

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Aircraft State Sensor Systems:
 These comprises of
(i) Air data systems : it provides accurate information on the air data quantities
such as
 Altitude
 Calibrated speed
 Vertical speed
 True airspeed
 Mach number
 Air stream incidence angle

 The above quantities are essential for control and navigation of an aircraft.
 The air data computing system computes these quantities from the outputs of
very accurate sensors which measure the static pressure, total pressure and air
temperature.
 The airstream incidence sensors is used to compute the air stream incidence
angle.
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
(ii)INERTIAL SENSOR SYSTEM
 The aircraft attitude and direction in which it is heading are clearly essential
information for the pilot in executing a manoevure or flying in night.
 This system consists of set of gyros and accelerometers which measure the
aircraft’s angular and linear motion about the aircraft axes, together with a
computing system which derives the aircraft attitude and heading from the
outputs of gyros and accelerometers.
 The use of very high accuracy gyros and accelerometers to measure the
aircraft motion constitute an INS.
 INS provides very accurate attitude and heading information together with
the aircraft velocity and position data ( ground speed, track angle, latitude/
longitude co-ordinates).

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Navigation:

 Accurate navigation information provides Aircraft's position, ground speed,

track angle (direction of motion of the aircraft relative to true north)

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Dead reckoning navigation
 Self contained and independent of external systems
 DR navigation systems used in aircraft are
•Air data/heading reference system -lower accuracy
•Doppler/heading reference systems -widely used in helicopters
•Inertial Navigation systems -most accurate and widely used systems
•Doppler/Inertial navigation system -combination

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
RADIO NAVIGATION SYSTEM
 The aircraft position is derived using the suitable receiver with a supporting
computer by receiving the signals from ground based or satellite transmitters.
 GPS is used in the prime position fixing system, this is the satellite navigation
system of outstanding accuracy.
 Other radio navigation aids such as VOR/DME and TACAN and which provides
the range(R) and bearing of aircraft from ground beacon transmitters located
to provide coverage of the main air routes.
 ILS/MLS are used in the condition of poor visibility in airports.

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
External world sensors:

Infra red sensor systems

 All weather , night time operation
 Transform the operational capability of the aircraft
Radar systems
 Weather radar
 Installed in all civil airliners & in many general aviation aircraft to detect
water droplets and provide warning of storms , cloud turbulence and severe
precipitation – aircraft can alter course and avoid such turbulent conditions
 Modern fighter aircraft generally carry very sophisticated multi-mode radars

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 Weather Radar Flight Control Radar Flying Radar station

Detection Radar (Military Purpose) Weather Radar in

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TASK AUTOMATION SYSTEM
 Autopilot and FMS
 Autopilot relieves the pilot of need to fly aircraft continuously with the
consequent tedium and fatigue and enable pilot to concentrate on other tasks
associated with mission.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Flight Management System
 Flight planning
 Navigation management
 Engine control to maintain the planned speed or mach number
 Control of aircraft flight path to follow the optimized planned route
 Control of vertical flight profile
 Ensuring the aircraft is at planned 3D position at the planned time slot, often
referred to as 4D navigation. This is very important for ATC
 Flight envelope monitoring
 Minimizing fuel consumption.

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
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House Keeping Management
 It is used to cover automation of background tasks
essential for aircraft safe and efficient operation. Such
tasks include
 Fuel management
 Electrical power supply system management
 Hydraulic power supply system management
 Cabin/ Cockpit pressurization system
 Environment control system
 Warning system
 Maintenance and monitoring systems.

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Engine control and management
 Control and the efficient management and monitoring of the engines
 It forms an integral part of the engine and is essential for its operation
 Engine control electronics is physically mounted on the engine FADEC
 Automatically controls the flow of fuel and respond to throttle command
 Control system ensures the engine limits in terms of temperatures , engine
speeds and accelerations are not exceed and the engine respond in an
optimum manner to the throttle command

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Application Technologies.
 Communications
 Navigations
 Monitoring
 Aircraft Flight-Control System
 Fuel Systems
 Collision-avoidance Systems
 Flight Recorders
 Weather Systems
 Aircraft Management Systems

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
 A Small Information

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

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Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Assignment 1 :
1. Discus in detail about the merits and demerits of avionics system (minimum 5
points each)
2. Write about 500 words how modern avionics system improve the aviation
industry.
3. List down the communication satellite used in Indian aviation and also list
down the navigation instruments which are used in Indian aviation with exact
location.
 Instructions :
• Should write in A4 sheet with 4 side margin and upload in your CAMU portal

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
R.Karthikeyan
Department of Aeronautical Engineering