Aerospace and Defence

Test and Calibration of Aircraft cabin LED lighting modules

 The challenge

To test and calibrate a LED lightening module to a specific colour (X, Y and intensity) to an accuracy greater than can be detected by the human eye along the entire cabin length of an aircraft.

 Customer Requirements

In addition to the calibration challenge the solution also had to provide electrical safety tests, electrical, weight and length measurements across multiple modules, all while keeping the modules within a small temperature window.

 The solution

A two stage water cooled integrated test system controlled by National Instruments’ PXI/CompactDAQ hardware and Labview/TestStand software was developed.

The first stage was a multi-station cabinet structure supporting the various sensors to enable electrical safety tests, electrical, weight and length measurements across all the various modules.

The second stage was a dark room enclosure incorporating water cooled mounting points and spectrometer with sensor head mounted on a X-Y Linear drive system.

 How the solution was implemented

The control, measurement and stimulus hardware was housed in a Peak 19” Rack with integrated dark room enclosure. The module to be tested was first electrically tested for safety and functional operation within customer specified limits. On successful completion mechanical dimensions and weight were measured and automatically recorded by the system.

The module then moved to the final stage. It was mounted into the dark room enclosure and a water cooled system ensured it was kept within the required tight temperature range necessary for accurate calibration. The spectrometer head was moved to the appropriate positions and readings taken in a closed loop calibration cycle until the desired colour (X, Y and intensity) was achieved.

The whole test procedure was managed with National Instruments TestStand software guiding the operator, when required, to move the module through the various test stages and recording all test results.