Electronic engine display system (EEDS)

Meggitt Avionics’ EEDS is a military standard, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product, comprising two high technology units from our most recent new product development programmes.

1) Engine monitor display (EMD)

2) Data acquisition unit (DAU).

The system has been designed to replace aging, in-service engine instrument stacks with a modern, efficient and cost-effective solution that will remain flexible for the life of the aircraft. Preferred by pilots because of their easy-to-read and highly intuitive design, EEDS features high quality engine monitoring displays, with reversionary capability. It is ideal for most applications, including military and civil, fixed and rotary wing applications.

The EEDS records engine exceedence data which can be displayed on the EMD or downloaded onto a PC. This feature enables organisational maintenance engineers to make informed condition-based maintenance decisions, leading to leaner and more cost-effective support. Meggitt Avionics recommends installing two EMD units per cockpit (as illustrated below). Installing the EMD units in this vertical configuration allows for the most logical presentation of parameters, with left and right systems being instinctively apparent and providing flight crews with enhanced readability without the need for complex training.

In a typical twin-engine aircraft, eight to twelve engine parameters are displayed. For a fleet of 30 twin-cockpit trainers, up to 720 traditional engine instruments are installed. The same fleet of 30 trainers upgraded with EEDS, consisting of two EMD units per cockpit and one full redundancy DAU, gives a comparative LRU count of only 150 units.

The image of EEDS “before and after” (right) illustrates a typical military cockpit upgrade.

The EMD presents engine, fuel and other aircraft data received via the DAU. The display format can be tailored to suit specific aircraft requirements such as dials, linear scales, text or other symbols – in effect mimicking the layout of the various instruments being replaced. With dynamic use of colour and flexible symbols, the EMD delivers a vastly improved and intuitive pilot interface. Meggitt Avionics' lightest EMD weighs a mere 2.5 lb (1 kg) and is only 5.5” (139.7 mm) long, enabling installation in the most restrictive cockpit.

Analogue engine sensor interface complexities are addressed by the DAU modular design, which includes I/O boards that can be configured for each application. This enables EEDS to be fully integrated without changing the aircraft’s existing engine and fuel sensors. The DAU boasts a dual redundant design to ensure continuous availability of engine data should any single point fail. Even with such extensive functionality and redundancy, the DAU is an impressively small unit that can be comfortably accommodated in most avionics bays.