Automation of Air Data Test System

In this paper we have presented an approach to automate the air data testing techniques. Traditionally the Air Data Test System (ADTS) is manually programmed with different values, using the built-in numeric keypad on the equipment, to calibrate the pressure and altitude sensors of a vehicle or aircraft. For each input the resulting output is compared with it. This manual approach is suitable for small ranges of pressure but when the sensor needs to be tested over a large range of pressure values, is time consuming and thus becomes impractical. Thus the need arises for automating the calibration process. This paper presents the implementation of an application developed in Lab VIEW for automating the calibration of the ADS via the GPIB interface. The GUI developed allows for extensive testing of the sensor in limited time.