Avionics

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Avionics Instruments DivisionRobins AFB GA
WR-ALC/MAI
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Mission

• To provide combat ready avionics parts and
  services that enable our war fighters to put
  bombs on target! Transforming capability into
  effects!

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Supported Systems

• Technology span covers 1950s through 1990s
  technologies under one roof

• Antennas and Radomes
• Cockpit Instruments
• Gyros
• Electronic Warfare
• HF,UHF, VHF Radios
• LANTIRN
• Computers Peripherals
• Radar Navigational, Terrain Following,
  Search, Attack, Fire Control, Bomb/Nav, and
  Doppler

• Infrared Scanners
• Precision Measurement Equipment
• LASER Designators
• Optical Systems
• Throttle Quadrants
• Video / Data Recorders
• Global Positioning System
• Instrument Landing Systems

• TACAN
• Transponders
• Heads-Up Display
• JTIDS
• LORAN Receivers
• Radio Beacons
• RADAR Altimeters
• Lead Computing Sights
• Test Equipment
• Surveillance

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Employees

• 1489 certified electronic mechanics,
  technicians, engineers, and support personnel
• 40 of the Division management, engineers,
  logisticians have Bachelor Degrees, 8 Masters
  degrees
• Approximately 1/3 of mechanics/ technicians
  have technical degrees, many others have prior
  military service in avionics repair

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Facility

• Complex covers 16 acres
• 700,000 SF of environmentally-controlled,
  secure work area
• Eight safe firing LASER rooms
• 17,000 SF of clean rooms Class 10,000 to
  300,000
• Standard, flexible electrical wire ways
• 80,000 SF of raised floor

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Unique Capabilities

• 7 indoor ranges
• 3 outdoor ranges
• 2 anechoic
• chambers
• F-15 PRISM
• Radome Accuracy
• Verification System
• Combat Talon II radome

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Organic Manufacturing

• Low volume
• Quick turnaround
• Minimum cost
• High quality
• Build-to-print quantities

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Printed Wiring Board Shop

• Capabilities (design, reverse engineering,
  build-to-print, fabrication
• Single / double-sided circuit boards
• Multi-layer (22) circuit boards
• 4 mil runs / 4 mil spaces
• Flexible / rigid-flexible
• MIL-P-55110 certified facility
• IPC PWB designer certified

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Printed Wiring Assembly Shop

• Capabilities
• Assembly of thru-hole technology CCAs
• Limited surface mount assembly CCA fabrication
• CCAs, SRUs, ITAs, other electronic bricks
• Manuals and automatic assembly processes
• IPC-A-610A Electronics Assy Training
• AFMC Regulatory Soldering Certified

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Cable Shop

• High frequency semi-rigid cable
• RF Coaxial cable
• Reverse engineering capability
• Ribbon and coaxial cable
• Multi-conductor wiring harness
• Interface test adapters
• Small test sets to flightline test sets
• Repair capability (LANTIRN Center Section)
• Testing
• Flexible Automatic Circuit Tester FACT)
• HP8510 network analyzer system

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Hybrid Micro-Electronic Shop

• Form - fit - function designs
• Custom designs using off-the-shelf components
• Organic thick film substrate manufacturing
• Single layer and multi-layer substrates
• Estimated capacity 6000 substrates per year
• Hybrid microcircuit assembly and test
• Thick film and thin film circuits
• Estimated capacity 2300 hybrid circuits per
  year
• Quality conformance testing
• Limited repair capability
• DSCC-certified MIL-PRF-38534 facility
• Re-qualification of failed hybrid devices

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Aging Avionics Testers

• 300 Avionics Testers in complex
• Average age is 20 years
• Tester obsolescence problems
• Difficult to maintain, parts unavailable,
  extended downtimes, etc
• Workload must be re-hosted to newer
  state-of-the-art testers

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State-of-the-Art-Testers

• Commercial off-the-shelf testers (COTS) provide
  best flexibility for Depot testing
• Workloads can be hosted on similarly
  instrumented copies of COTS testers (either
  functional or in-circuit)
• MAI has designated the Teradyne Spectrum as the
  COTS functional tester of choice
• MAI has designated the Agilent 3070 as the COTS
  in-circuit (bed-of-nails) tester of choice
• MAIs power supply tester of choice TBD

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Re-host Issues

• Most obsolete testers host more than 100 test
  programs
• Re-host costs for 100 test programs approximately
  10M
• Funding not available to re-host all test
  programs from each obsolete tester
• Depot repair capability suffers when all test
  programs not re-hosted

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Proposed solution

• Development of software analysis and translation
  tool
• Tool provides capability to analyze legacy test
  programs to determine input/output test
  functions, instrument application and selection
  (driver) protocol, timing issues, etc
• Envision an interactive query capability to
  discern legacy hardware and software I/O
  parameters (instrument communication/driver
  schemes)

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Proposed Solution (contd)

• Tool translates results to known COTS tester
  (i.e. Teradyne Spectrum, Agilent 3070)
• Will allow COTS tester manufacturers to offer
  customers one stop shop for their re-host
  projects (for a nominal fee of course)

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Avionics Instruments Division
Fixin For The Fight!