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Hot Topic: Astronics Sparks Profits In 2006

By itself the recent financial reporting by Astronics, the well known maker of in-seat power products would be a great story. President, Pete Gundermann reported this past week an increase in net income for the second quarter of 2006 of $2 million dollars, up from $.2 million in 2005. Sales for the first half of 2006 were $54 million, up some 56% over the first half last year. Said Gundermann, "While most of our product lines showed growth over the same period last year, sales of our cabin electronics products were extremely strong. The primary driver of growth through the second quarter this year has been the commercial transport market's demand for cabin electronics, although the business jet market also remains strong." But buried in the story is an interesting product development that may have future value for airlines, in-flight entertainment included. Astronics, under a Sandia license, has just developed a remarkable product, one that will increase the productivity of airline mechanics and will improve the safety of flying. The product is called ArcSafe and it uses a new technology nicknamed PASD - Pulse Arrested Spark Discharge - to locate potential wiring arc over failures… before they happen in service.

The technical solution seems to have two features, one determines if the cable will arc over and the other determines where it will occur. The second, position detection technology, seems to derive it’s genesis from an old technique of measuring cable and wiring faults called Time Domain Reflectrometry (TDR) – with a few new twists. If you want to research the technology, try this web location as a starting point: http://www.thom-tech.com/tdr.htm. Using the measured electrical reflections of very short nanosecond pulses sent down a wire, engineers can determine the location of a fault by measuring the time it takes a pulse to send back a reflection. Doing this down a hidden wire bundle with many branches is a real trick but the Sandia and Astronics team say they can. The second technology, testing arc-over before it happens is usually performed by sending a large enough voltage to generate an arc. Since actually creating an arc is a no-no, Astronics has obviously piggy-backed the technologies and coupled their solution with the ability to sense an arc before it generates one (thus short pulses). The goal in any nondestructive technique (and this is a nondestructive technique) is not to destroy or otherwise make the problem worse. In this case, the arc-over point is identified without destroying anything else which will eventually lead the airline to repair or replace the problem cable section. This task can be very difficult on aircraft or things like submarines where cables lay in semi sealed compartments behind bulkheads, in wings, or even in cable raceways.

We understand the ArcSafe product will be announced next month but you might want to call Astronics and get a preview. Oh by the way, you might check into their stock while you are at it!
 

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