A description of the hardware element of the NASA EME flight tests

Abstract

In support of NASA's fly-by-light/power-by-wire (FBL/PBW) program, a series of flight tests were conducted by NASA Langley Research Center in February, 1995. The NASA Boeing 757 was flown past known RF transmitters to measure both external and internal radiated fields. The aircraft was instrumented with strategically located sensors for acquiring data on shielding effectiveness and internal coupling. The data are intended to support computational and statistical modeling codes used to predict internal field levels of an electromagnetic environment (EME) on an aircraft. The hardware, instrumentation, and sensors, forged the basis of the data acquisition system. The configuration of the hardware provided for accurate measurements of the electromagnetic environment during flight. The system operated at several specified frequencies and modulation schemes. Internal and external EME data were recorded by the acquisition equipment and additional flight parameters were acquired from the aircraft's flight data bus. This paper describes the flight instrumentation system on board the aircraft and concentrates on the hardware components employed during the EME flight test. Measurement instrumentation, sensors, and aircraft configurations, are illustrated and discussed. Particular attention is given to design, operation, and use of the hardware. The actualized flight test scenarios are discussed to give broader scope of the experiment, design requirements and philosophy are examined to highlight the quality and the limitations of the system, and flight data is presented as a representative sample of experiment results.