Effective Use of FPGA in Switching of Aeronautical Ground Lighting (AGL) System

Safety is the number one priority in all aspects of aviation. Risks and the associated hazards identified are eliminated or mitigated and documented before they lead to accidents or incidents. Navigational aids like Aeronautical Ground Lighting (AGL) are installed around the movement area to guide the pilot of an aircraft. AGL was developed shortly after the invention of the aircraft to enable air travel to compete with other forms of transport and manage emergency needs night flying became imperative. The early forms of lighting were provided through fire beacons as small makers or fossil fuel poured in long trenches burns to mark out or outline the edges of a landing strip. The first form of electrical lighting started to emerge in the late 1920s, while the standardization started through United Nations (UN) International Civil Aviation Authority from 1940. With the advent of AGL, the operation, maintenance, and conservation of the AGL system have been a matter of concern, as they are nearly always in use, posing large energy consumption and inherent high-cost operation. In an attempt to solve the issue of energy consumption, two-prong approaches are being worked on. One is the replacement of the high energy-consuming incandescent halogen light with the low energy-consuming Light Emitting Diode (LED). The second is to employ a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based smart switching with which substantial savings on energy consumption is made.