Hazards Of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO) Instrumentation Developments for High Intensity Radiated Field (HIRF) Testing of Aircraft

The electromagnetic Radio Frequency environment which electro-explosive devices (EEDs) may experience in service and how this can affect the Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordinance (HERO) safety are discussed. The uses for these types of devices in the aerospace industry are for both safety consequences and mission related systems. This paper discusses the different methods used for instrumenting EEDs in the past and presently, and the advantages and disadvantages of each type of instrumentation. Additionally, improvements that have been made in recent years are described, developing instrumentation techniques that are more reliable and repeatable with good sensitivities for each individual device and allow extrapolation of measurements. This paper also discusses the most common forms of instrumentation used today for testing in a High Intensity Radiated Field (HIRF) environment and where these methods were developed from.