It is the application of electronics to aviation or to aircraft systems, that is, all those electronic systems, both in communication systems as well as indicators and their handling elements. Avionics emerged in the 1970s from the need to improve military aviation and soon expanded to commercial aviation. In fact, military aviation allocates 80% of the aircraft manufacturing budget to avionics, and that is significant. In commercial aviation, the need to improve air traffic management with new guidance and navigation systems, as well as to safely control aircraft, has been the driving force behind the evolution of avionics.
Avionics began by attempting to consolidate analog navigation and surveillance systems, and has evolved to provide us with the most effective communications systems, such as satellite communications, datalink communications, the most sophisticated autopilot systems, guidance and flight management (FMS), and has evolved to provide systems that centralize and monitor the rest of the aircraft’s systems, from engines, cabin lights to landing gear, to provide real-time parameters of these systems, called Central Maintenance Systems (CMC) or Health Monitoring, which allow for real-time aircraft maintenance in both a predictive and reactive manner.
Evolution in technology has largely been an ally in improving flight procedures and safety, especially in aspects of navigation, control and aircraft localization. The air environment is a hostile environment, so being connected in the air with the best and most reliable communications systems, with the best spatial orientation systems, as well as obtaining the best real-time weather information or being able to visualize the trajectories of aircraft flying around us with systems like TCAS or ADS, are the key factors where technology has played a very important role, which also includes the use of fiber optic cabling aboard, reducing and minimizing the amount of copper or coaxial cable needed on board.
The constant development of systems and their components has also led us to evolve the various measurement and test equipment for the sector. This is why the old ATC-600A, ATC-601 and TCAS-201 equipment for TRANSPONDER, DME and TCAS (all of them ramp test) are nowadays replaced by the IFR6000 with optional OPT3 and OPT2, the transponder bench equipment ATC-1400A (XPDR / DME), S-1403DL/MLD (Mode S) and SDX-2000 with OPT00 (XPDR / DME) find their replacement in the ATC-500NG.
We also find this dynamic in the military world, where the old XPDR equipment for ramp and bench, such as IFF-701 (IFF XPDR Test Set), IFF-701Ti (IFF XPDR/Interrogator Test Set), AN/APM424(V)3 (Interrogator / XPDR Test Set), TS-4530/UPM, TS-4530-1 and TS-4542/UPM (Interrogator / XPDR Test Set), have been replaced by the APM-424(V)4 (Interrogator / XPDR Test Set) and the APM-424(V)5 (MK XIIA Ramp Test Set Mode 5), while the T-1401 (TACAN), SI-1404 (MK 12/Mode S IFF), I-1402 (Mode 4), SDX-2000 OPT1 (IFF) and OPT2 (TACAN), were replaced by the IFF-45TS with OPT2 and OPT4.
The RGS-2000 equipment (TCAS Replay Generator) was replaced by the RGS-2000NG, as far as bench equipment for TCAS is concerned, while regarding systems for Nav/Comm for ramp, the NAV-410L (Nav/Comm/ILS) and NAV-402AP (MKR/Nav/Comm) were replaced by the IFR4000. And finally, the equipment for GPS simulation testing such as GPS-101 and GNS-743A are replaced and integrated in the new GPSG-1000 (GPS/Galileo Portable Positional Simulator).
These same advances also occur in companies. This is the case with companies that originated as IFR and JcAIR, which evolved over time to AEROFLEX, then to COBHAM, to finally add that experience to the experience and vision of VIAVI.