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US 2019/0173296 A1Published application
Integrated capacitive discharge electrical bonding assurance system
AssigneeBell Helicopter Textron Inc.
InventorGary S. Froman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In one embodiment, an aircraft electronics system includes a hardware processor, a charge collection circuit to collect charge; a switching circuit controlled by the hardware processor to discharge the charge collected on the charge collection circuit through a bonding circuit formed from a chassis and a bonding surface; and a voltage measurement circuit to measure a voltage difference between measurement terminals across the chassis and the bonding surface.
Claims20
An aircraft electronics system comprising:
- a hardware processor;
- a charge collection circuit to collect charge;
- a switching circuit controlled by the hardware processor to discharge the charge collected on the charge collection circuit through a bonding circuit formed from a chassis and a bonding surface;
- and
- a voltage measurement circuit to measure a voltage difference between measurement terminals across the chassis and the bonding surface.
2 more elements
A rotorcraft, comprising:
- an avionics electronics system comprising:
- a chassis coupled to a ground plane;
- a hardware processor;
- a charge collection circuit to collect charge;
- a switching circuit controlled by the hardware processor to discharge the charge collected on the charge collection circuit through a bonding circuit formed from the chassis and a bonding surface;
- and
- a voltage measurement circuit to measure a voltage difference between measurement terminals across the chassis and the bonding surface.
4 more elements
A method for determining electrical bonding integrity, the method comprising:
- charging a charge collecting circuit;
- activating a switch to automatically couple the charge collecting circuit to one or more bonding measurement terminals;
- measuring a voltage differential across the bonding measurement terminals;
- determining that the voltage differential across the bonding measurement terminals is above a threshold voltage value;
- and
- providing an electrical bonding warning indicator that indicates a loss of electrical bonding subsequent to the determining.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.