Helicopter Radio Backplane

A Transmitter/Receiver LRU from a helicopter radio system, as used in several UK military helicopter fleets, suffers significant levels of No Fault Found. The client responsible for Depth support of these assets requested Copernicus Technology Ltd to assess the LRU design and identify how best to test them to isolate root causes of intermittent faults.

Analysis of the design (above left) resulted in the decision to focus on testing the ribbon-cable back-plane, owing to the fact that this type of component is chronically susceptible to intermittent faults. The ribbon-cables (below left) were tested using the Ncompass™ Analyzer and it was quickly discovered that the vast majority of the ribbon-cables yielded intermittent faults and continuity faults, even though they had been removed from LRUs that were passing Depth ATE testing.

The faults detected were easily repairable, with further Ncompass™ testing confirming that their full system integrity had been restored.