A high voltage programmable input interface for avionic equipment

Avionic computers are required to sense their environment or interact with other devices through the use of various sensors or communication buses. Currently, these sensors and buses use dedicated interfaces, which limits the functionalities that can be implemented in the computer. In this paper, we propose a programmable interface meant to interface most common sensors found in avionics, which could facilitate the design and reuse of avionic computers. The architecture of the interface is presented, with a focus on the programmable analog signal conditioning stage which is able to withstand the high voltages present in the harsh avionic environment.