RUM2021 RUM2021-EuroCentral CustomerPresentation Electromagnetics
Abstract:
Today’s commercial aircraft and large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) use a wide array of communication types to ensure safe and efficient use of controlled airspace for flight operations. These communication technologies range from human/voice radio transmissions to airborne satellite communication (SATCOM) applications. Communication systems require a transmitter mounted on an aircraft or an UAV and use a wideband microwave EM signal to send or receive messages to and from satellites or other sources. The communication antennas are enclosed in a dielectric radome that protects the antenna from environmental impacts like wind, rain, ice, sand, UV radiation, lightning strikes and provides aerodynamic stability during the flight. Ideally, the radome should be fully transparent to the incoming and outgoing microwave signals to and from a satellite. However, the radome structure even made from dielectric materials degrades the electromagnetic performance of the antenna. In addition, the lightning protection system made from solid or segmented diverter strips which is usually placed on outer radome surface can further decrease the radar antenna performance significantly.
This lecture provides an overview of the lightning strike phenomenon, the EM modelling & simulation of the radome design and the current radome lightning protection solutions. Furthermore, the experimental high voltage & high current procedures used for lightning protection design of airborne radomes are presented.
Speaker Info:
Dr. Christian Karch was appointed as an Airbus Expert in Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), Lightning, and Stealth in 2011. Prior to assuming this position, he served 6 years as EMC and Lightning Specialist at Airbus Innovation Works. Before joining Airbus, Mr Karch was working as a Researcher at DaimlerChrysler Research and in the Technology Department, being in charge of Electromagnetic and Multiphysics topics.
He graduated in Theoretical Physics from the University Regensburg in 1990. In 1993, Mr Karch received his doctorate with the PhD Thesis Ab-Initio Calculations of Static and Dynamic Properties of Diamond, Silicon, and Silicon-Carbide in Theoretical Physics at the University of Regensburg. From 1992 until 1996, he regularly visited the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS), in Trieste, Italy and the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France, as a guest scientist. From 1994 to 1997 he was appointed as Teaching Assistant at the Institute for Solid State Physics and Theoretical Optics at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena.
Mr Karch co-authored more than 50 publications in refereed scientific journals and more than 15 patent applications.
