18th April 2013, Oberpfaffenhofen (Munich, Germany) – SANDRA project has achieved an important milestone, toward the flight trials, which will take place during June 2013. The airborne segment of innovative SANDRA communication system has undergone EMI electromagnetic interference tests which has been successfully passed.
Tests has been carried out and coordinated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) together with Seles ES, Thales Aerospace UK, Thales Research & Technology, Triagnosys and University of Salzburg. These tests are required for allowing the DLR experimental Airbus 320 to fly with SANDRA equipment, guaranteeing that no dangerous emission could impair existing avionics.
Equipment under test comprised the Integrated Router (Triagnosys), the Integrated Modular Radio processors (Thales Research & Technology), the BGAN Tranceiver (Thales Research & Technology), the VDL2 transceiver (Thales Research & Technology), the AeroMACS transceiver (Selex ES), but also end systems which will be use during the flight trial, such as the VoIP appliance (Uni. Salzburg) and the WiFi AP and Onboard Server (Thales UK). Also DLR powering system was part of the test.
Equipment has been moved from the SANDRA test bed to the DLR hangar, where the experimental flight racks have been integrated, cabled and tested. All cables had to be orderly positioned. Access to the hangar has been limited during tests and all emitting systems hav been switched off. Spectrum measurements between 100 Hz to 6 GHz have been performed and compliance to DO-160 levels have been verified.
Next major milestones before the flight trials is the completion of laboratory trials and AeroMACS car tests which are foreseen to be completed within May 2013.
Here a slideshow with some moments of the intensive activity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLW_hV5b9A
A few pictures of the testing session:
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