Instrumentation for Aerospace Applications: Electronic-Based Technologies

Throughout the 70-year history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC), instrumentation engineers have provided measurement methods and devices necessary to support ongoing and future aeropropulsion research and development efforts. On occasion, routine instrumentation approaches are perfectly suited for the task at hand. However, as propulsion components and systems become more complex through the incorporation of new materials and higher temperature operation, modifications to traditional instrumentation methods or entirely new methods are necessary. This paper provides a glimpse of the core electronic-based instrumentation methods developed throughout the years to measure temperature, strain, pressure, heat flux, and chemical gas species and describes how these methods are evolving to meet the instrumentation challenges of high-performance propulsion systems. It is clear that future aeropropulsion systems will operate at higher temperatures and require more onboard electronics for health monitoring and control functions. For this reason, a significant effort in high-temperature electronics based on the wide-bandgap semiconductor silicon carbide was initiated and has demonstrated several world's first electronic sensors and devices operating at 600°C. It is concluded that electronic-based sensors and devices will continuously be pushed to meet the needs of increasingly harsher environment measurements.