Pickering Power

Pickering group of expertise for the northern european area

We offer products and services to streamline the development and deployment of your high-performance electronic test and verification systems.

Need help with your Power Electronic Test System?

Together with our close partners we help you choose the highest reliable, most user friendly and configurable test equipment.

Read more
An illustration by Cinergia

Avionics

More electric and all-electric aircraft projects along with variable frequency generation systems are driving new developments and new test needs in the fields of avionics.

CINERGIA offers a unique Regenerative AC Electronic Load designed to work in a frequency range of 360 to 900Hz used mainly in aircraft generator’s testing platforms. The use of such equipment has two main advantages. First, it allows a significant energy and power saving as > 90% of the energy is fed back into the grid. Being, many times, the power saving the most important point as the power requirements of the laboratory will be reduced to the losses of the motor-generator bench plus the losses of the electronic load. Second, it allows a better control and simplifies hugely the tests...

... Common test procedures require loading the generator with a fixed power factor (cos fi) while the speed of the generator changes (and thus the frequency). This requires adapting the inductance value continuously in order to keep the cos fi constant throughout the frequency sweep. Using real inductors demands the use of many inductors, that will be connected/disconnected to modify the inductance, or the use of inductors with variable gap. With CINERGIA High Frequency Electronic loads it is only necessary to set the desired current and delay (cos fi) and the dynamic PLL will automatically synchronise the current with the voltage keeping the power factor fixed.

Avionics Power Standards Compliance Testing

As aircraft electronics continue to evolve, so do their power requirements. Aircraft systems have grown from their original 115Vac L-N / 208Vac L-L at 400Hz fixed frequency roots to sophisticated on-board power systems operating at 115Vac and 230Vac and frequencies ranging from 360 to 800Hz.

Commercial avionics tests standards such as DO-160 and EuroCAE 14 have a wide range of AC power immunity tests that have to be performed on airborne electronics. More recently, several commercial aircraft manufacturers have developed their own version of these test standards based largely on DO-160.

Military aircraft electronics have to comply with standards such as MIL-STD-704 or MIL-STD-1399-300B. These standards evolve along the same lines as commercial standards. Pacific Power Source’s products have grown from the capability to power aircraft electronics at 115Vac and 400Hz to full AC Power Compliance Test Systems today. Advanced Windows control software manages test sequences and provides documentation on product conformance.