In a Q&A session, Aerospace Manufacturing hears the views of Smiths Interconnect’s vice-president marketing & communications, Roberta Rebora following on from the company’s recent strategic re-organisation.
Smiths Interconnect, a division of Smiths Group plc, recently unified its technology brands (EMC Technology, Hypertac, IDI, Lorch, Millitech, RF Labs, Sabritec, TECOM and TRAK) under the single brand identity of ‘Smiths Interconnect’. This brand transition supports a recent strategic re-organisation focused on creating a more agile structure that can better anticipate and respond to customers’ evolving needs.
Individually, the technology brands represent state-of-the-art solutions across the connectors, microwave components and microwave subsystems markets. Providing a strong brand that supports the breadth of these products and technologies will make Smiths Interconnect a more comprehensive solutions provider, improving the customer experience by streamlining access and interactions across multiple applications. The individual technology brands will continue to be visible in association with the Smiths Interconnect brand during the transition period.
Now, with the strategic reorganisation customers are provided with a single point of supply, for not only application-specific high-reliability connector solutions and rugged cable assemblies, but also integrated microwave and millimetre-wave components, integrated microwave assemblies and systems, high performance ferrites, RF devices and time and frequency systems. High performance ground and airborne antenna systems for SATCOM, radio link, radar, telemetry, and high bandwidth connectivity are also available for the commercial aviation market.
The increasing complexity of avionics and electrically-actuated aircraft systems are driving increases in power density requirements. We see examples manifest in a number of ways including: Miniaturisation of interconnection so overall current and voltage density increases; Increasing voltages without miniaturisation, so more power must pass through the same envelope; Increasing power demand to meet increasing data demands of aircraft; more power is required to push higher frequency RF signals through the air with greater signal integrity and reliability in adverse weather conditions.
Increases in population are also affecting performance demand. As both the number of aircraft and the number of passengers per aircraft rises, the data requirements increase as well. As a result, we see development of connectivity products with higher frequency and wider bandwidth, high density with increased shielding effectiveness and improved signal integrity > 10 GPS.
In addition, the higher competition among airlines moves the efficiency of in-flight entertainment into the spotlight, as a differentiator. The airline industry has reached an inflection point in which connectivity is becoming a commodity, rather than just a luxury. Customer expectations have surpassed what many airlines currently can offer. Businesses that wish to stay relevant will have to quickly improve the ways they utilise bandwidth. Data system reliability has become increasingly important driven by the increase in revenue generation from data to passengers, meaning downtime costs airlines more.
Furthermore, regulations influence the demand for increased engine efficiency. For example, CO2 emissions regulations are driving research efforts towards hybrid electric aircraft that mix traditional systems with electrical assistance (i.e. hybrid engines, EHA actuators as developed onto A380, and electrical equipment such as e-taxiing, de-icing, etc.) This development will result in an increase of the electrical power by using high voltage and high gap components. The need to increase engine efficiency will also drive the use of sensors and the need for the equipment to withstand higher temperature and vibration requirements for engine contacts. Regulation impacts do not end there; flying hours over cities to curtail noise pollution and increasing electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) requirements (for both total waveform energy and rise time) can be linked to the development and application of composite aircraft technology.
We are working on highly flexible and modular high-speed interconnect solutions combining controlled impedance differential signal pairs, power pins, and discrete pins into a single connector housing to offer next generation data on demand, meeting both point to point and backplane connector requirements.
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