Electronic design for Aeronautics
Brancaro Industries Engineering team is specialized in electronic design, with specific knowledge in aeronautics. Besides functional requirements, every designed piece of circuit is shaped with all its additional RAMS, Qualification Requirements (Civil or Military) in mind.
Analog and Digital control & monitoring circuits and Power electronics design are in our maximum expertise fields. Based on your requirements, we can design including DO-178 and DO-254 guidelines or, if possible, with no complex hardware or complex software in order to obtain the best development cost effectiveness.
In the Avionics field, the protections circuits represent a critical area. We offer our deep experience to design protection boards to comply with Lightning, EMC/EMI, Power input, Voltage spike requirements. We integrate circuit design, routing, thermal design and mechanical aspects to maximize the chance to pass the tests at the first trial.
As company standard, we use the Altium Designer suite, but we can import and export from other suites as well.
PCB Board Routing
Either you have developed you own schematic or we did it, we can start from there to develop your board or equipment. The routing process is performed taking into account: electrical functionality, signal integrity, thermal management and mechanical integration. In our experience, sharing the enclosure design maximize placement effectivity and volume optimization.
Key points:
- SMT starting from 0402 footprint or TTH
- One-side up to 24 Copper Layers
- IMS (Insulated Metal Substrate)
- Flex board or Rigid-flex boards
- Output: Gerber, ODB++, Pick&Place, Drill files, PDF3D, 3D Step, BOM
Circuit simulations
We split circuit simulations into 3 different groups: Functional, Robustness and Qualification simulations.
Functional Simulations
Functional simulations are circuit time-domain simulation that ensures circuit functionality and requirements compliance. This simulations are normally carried out using LTSpice software, and are the first step while designing a circuit.
Robustness simulations
Once the basic functionality of the circuit is assessed via the functional simulation, the next step is to implement a more complex simulation based on:
- Temperature sweeps
- Monte-carlo simulations
- AC Simulations
Environmental Qualification Simulations
At this stage the protection circuit is added to the main project and specific simulations are performed to de-risk and assess immunity against Environmental Qualification tests like: EMC/EMI (conducted), Lightning, Power Input, Voltage Spike.
Mechanical Design
Designing an equipment is not only about enclosing an electro-mechanical circuit in a proper case and providing adequate environmental protection. It also requires careful consideration regarding its construction, manufacturing and ease of maintenance at all levels.
At Brancaro Industries we always have in mind those requirements, and we simulate assembly and repair right into the virtual model.
Weight: Avionic equipment need to be lightweight but robust and reliable in order to comply with environmental requirements such as temperature, vibration, acceleration and shock. FEM and CFD Analysis helps us to optimize shape, reduce weight and anticipate test issues.
Every mechanical or electronic piece designed is 3D printed in the Brancaro Industries Malpensa Production Center. The engineering team and you, as our customer, may have the new printed parts available for the next day.
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Harness & Test Benches design
We propose design and manufacture of manual and automatic test benches. This can be used to test single PCB Boards or complete equipment. They are necessary for laboratory functional tests, endurance tests and qualification tests as well.
Moreover, internal equipment harnesses or aircraft wiring are designed and built at Brancaro Industries. We typically use MIL cables and 3D38999 and DSUB connectors as aerospace standard.
Technical Documentation
The overall Design & Development process is done according to the ARP-4754A guideline. The V&V model is followed and all the related technical documentation is produced. We produce high-quality reports, based on our templates or on yours, for example:
- Requirement Technical Specification
- Installation Manual
- Acceptance Test Procedure (ATP)
- Interface Control Document (ICD)
- Weight Report
- Declaration of Design & Performance (DDP)
RAMS Documentation
We consider RAMS requirements throughout the overall development process from concept onwards. These features are continually evaluated and controlled throughout the design/development process to maximize the benefit of such analysis rather than using it as a final check to show that applicable RAMS requirements have been satisfied.
List of documents we normally produce:
Reliability
- Reliability Requirements Definition
- Reliability Prediction
- FMEA (Failures Modes Effects Analysis)
- FMECA (Failures Modes Effects & Criticality Analysis)
- FRACAS (Failures Reporting and Corrective Actions System) Management
Testability
- Testability Requirements Definition
- Inherent Testability Design Analysis
- Fault Detection Analysis
- Fault Isolation Analysis
Maintainability
- Maintainability Allocations
- Maintainability Requirements Definition
- Maintainability Predictions
- MTA (Maintenance Tasks Analysis)
- RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance)
Safety
- Safety Strategy, Safety Program Plan and Safety Requirements Definition
- Hazard Analysis (PHA, FHA, OSHA, MHA, FEHA)
- FTA (Fault Tree Analysis)
- SAR (Safety Assessment Report)
- SIL (Safety Integrity Level) Evaluation