Research On General Test Technology For Aircraft Power Control Unit

Aviation industry requires much higher quality and reliability on equipments that are installed orwill be installed in aircraft. Under the development trend of more electric aircrafts, the quantity andcomplexity of power control units are significantly increased. Conventional manual test method canno longer meet the requirements of efficient and accurate test for these units that necessitate theresearch on test technology and automatic test systems. This thesis researches test methods for aircraftpower control units, such as generator control unit (GCU) and bus power control unit (BPCU), andexplores applications of virtual instrumentation, PXI systems, real-time simulation and hardware-in-loop (HIL) test.First, a general purpose and automatic test system (ATS) is designed. The structure andcomposition of an aircraft power system are introduced. Based on research of an aircraft powersystem and power control units, GCU/BPCU’s test signal requirements are analyzed. According to theanalysis results, hardware architecture and function of the ATS are designed giving full considerationof generality and expandability.In the second, modular and open software framework is established and essential techniques intest systems are studied, including instrument remote control, data processing, database manipulation,etc. Software modules for programmable voltage source control, electronic loads control, dataacquisition equipment operation, data storage and analog signal acquisition are developed inLabVIEW including several user-interfaces. Experimental results demonstrate that these softwaremodules actualize key functions in test system and lay a good foundation for system construction.Finally, Test method for GCU’s core component, automatic voltage regulator (AVR), isresearched. AVR is conventionally tested in generator platform which brings high cost and lowefficiency. Nevertheless, off-line test for steady-state and dynamic performance of AVR are difficult toaccomplish. In order to solve this issue, this thesis explores the application of HIL technology inaircraft power control unit test and proposes an HIL test method based on model identification.Generator and AVR are analyzed and modeled in RT-LAB. Test loop is established by connectingAVR to real-time simulator. Steady-state and dynamic loading/unloading test results prove that thistest method is effective and efficient. This thesis initially realized AVR off-line test.