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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 0069.PDF
SCfENCEXSCOPE Pilots flying the U.S. Navy's F/A-18 Hornet aircraft have a new navigational aid to help them in smoke, haze, darkness and adverse weather. Designed and built by Hughes Aircraft Company, the Thermal Imaging Navigation Set (TINS) uses a thermal imaging sensor to provide pilots with a television-like image of the terrain ahead. The image is projected onto a head-up display for night viewing or in poor visibility. TINS consists of four weapon replaceable assemblies including a forward-looking infrared sensor unit that detects and converts infrared energy into an electronics signal. An automatic visual inspection system will verify the quality of solder joints in radar sub-assemblies. The system, under development at Hughes, is comprised of a special light source, a video camera, and a computer. The system verifies the quality of each solder joint flow and sends the results to a touch-up workstation where a humarf'operator can correct any defects. Hughes currently creates about 100 million solder joints per year and expects to achieve a significant reduction in manpower requirements and an improvement in product reliability. A new hydrogen maser "atomic clock" combines a compact size suitable for space applications with the highest long-term stability ever reported for this type of device. Developed and built by Hughes for the U.S. Navy, the fully automated frequency standard is about 10 times more stable than currently-used cesium beam devices. Atomic clocks use the resonance frequency of an atom to provide a precise measurement of time, but use of hydrogen maser clocks in space has been limited due to their bulkiness. Other Hughes-built atomic clocks were developed for the Defense Department's NAVSTAR Global Positioning System. An innovative computer program dramatically reduces the hours required to model the performance of new missile designs. Called Generic Missile Simulation (GEMS), the software, created by Hughes, cuts the evaluation time of new missile designs from six months to one to 20 days, depending on the complexity of the missile. The time saving is accomplished because GEMS contains a library of generic building blocks needed for missile system simulation. These building blocks are combined, or modified, as necessary to simulate a new missile design. In the past, each new design required its own, unique simulation software. Very thin aluminum foil helps make a large radar antenna physically manageable. The 94 radio frequency (RF) vertical feeds on the electronically-steered, Hughes-built Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System-2 (ASARS-2) antenna are made by stretch-shaping the aluminum foil, which is only six-thousandths of an inch thick, into a complex pattern. The process, called hydroforming, produces a feed which weighs about seven ounces, compared to traditional sheet-metal feeds that weigh two to three pounds each. Along with other design features, these lightweight feeds resulted in an antenna, including all its electronics, mechanics, and power supplies, that weighs only one-third as much as comparable units. For more information write to: P.O. Box 45068, Los Angeles, CA 90045-0068 USA • <$\ ©1990 Hughes Aircraft Company Subsidiary of GM Hughes Electronics
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