Products for the
Aerospace & Defense Market
Aerospace & Defense markets demand highly tailored solutions for specific mission and application needs. Often, this equipment is flight-critical hardware, necessitating the utmost level of quality and reliability. Our customers require cutting-edge technology to achieve levels of performance unimaginable just a few years ago.
CST’s Aerospace & Defense products are recognized leaders worldwide. We have a track record of pioneering new technologies for the marketplace. Our more than 50-year heritage reflects the success of our endeavors. State-of-the-art production facilities and the highest quality certifications, teamed with an experienced staff in sales, design, engineering, production, and quality ensure that CST sensors and systems meet the rigid standards established for these critical applications.
LVDT & RVDT
Kavlico has been and continues to be the leading supplier of LVDT & RVDT (Linear & Rotary) position sensors to the aerospace and power generation industry sectors for nearly 50 years. LVDTs can be configured as single channel, multi-channel and DC/DC. RVDTs are available as single channel, multi-channel, geared and DC/DC. Kavlico LVDTs are well suited for high temperatures and vibration environments requiring operating pressures in excess of 10,000 psi. They have all stainless steel or aluminum construction adding to their robust design. Kavlico RVDTs are the industry standard for angular and rotary measurements in aviation applications. Lightweight and robust, they are capable of ±80 degrees angular range.
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Linear Gap Displacement Transducer (LGDT)
- Non-contact optical probe measures linear distance to target
- Target may be diffuse or specular
- Similar to application to eddy current sensors, except target is not limited to magnetic conductive materials
- Insensitive to electromechanical fields
- Wide temperature range electronics
- Several models cover gaps from 1mm to 25mm
- Resolution from 100nM
- Analog output standard
- Wide bandwidth
- Robust construction; probe tip is stainless steel and glass
- Can measure submerged in a wide array of fluids such as oil, hydraulic fluid, JP4, water, etc. Very insensitive to degree of fluid contamination
- Probe tip can tolerate high pressure or vacuum
- Probe tip can tolerate very wide temperature excursions
- Custom variations readily designed
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Optical Encoders
Optical encoders are used to measure angular or linear position. Features include:
- Insensitive to magnetic fields
- Highly accurate
- Extremely high resolution
- Incremental or absolute
- Single or multi-turn
- Parallel or serial output protocol
- Wide temperature range
- Certified accuracy
- Lighter in weight than magnetic equivalents
- Long heritage of units found in military & space applications
- Excellent experience in demanding environments (shock, vibration, radiation, vacuum)
- Complete turnkey programmatic support
- Support all applicable quality & reliability standards
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Proximity Switches & Sensors
Proximity Switches
Crouzet’s expertise in electronic detection and ability to adapt products to customer specifications makes Crouzet the leader in this field. Crouzet produce special housings, electrical interfaces, 2 or 3-wires, extended temperature ranges, metallic front faces, built-in test functions. Multiple configuration designs fit landing gear, flight control, thrust reversers, and door applications.
Proximity Sensors
Crouzet’s products are based upon a passive sensor combined with a remote electronic board. The sensors are available in rectangular and circular shapes with fully customizable electrical interfaces. The HPM electronic module is a standard “ready-to-use” component developed in accordance with DO254 and allows each customer to build their own application around it.
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Potentiometric
BEI Duncan Electronics offers a range of high performance, reliable, and cost-effective standard position sensors for a broad variety of industrial applications. These sensors have been configured for severe duty and operate over a wide temperature range in harsh environments. Customers can choose from a product line of precision potentiometric designs as well as choosing the electrical and inter-connection solutions. In addition to a standard product line of rotary and linear sensors, BEI Duncan Electronics provides custom engineered solutions with unique packaging, voltage outputs (Analog / voltage, PWM and CANBus) for OEM applications. BEI Duncan Electronics engineering provides fast prototyping and quoting for these custom design needs. Designing custom packaging for high volume OEM application-specific sensing applications is what BEI Duncan Electronics does best. By matching the correct sensing technology to the specific design criteria, they minimize cost while maximizing performance.
Other features include excellent EMI/RFI protection. Their field proven technologies include: potentiometric, wire wound, and hybrid potentiometric sensors.
BEI Duncan Electronics sensors are used in the following industrial applications: Medical equipment, material handling, Petroleum and refining, office automation and food processing automation.
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Limit Switches
Crouzet can provide a vast range of standard and specific products. Their ability to design customized housings, multiple function, high speed actuation and/or high temperature solutions allows them to be the brand of choice on all major programs for thrust reversers, flight control, doors or landing gear applications.
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MEMS Rate Gyros
Systron Donner Inertial (SDI) is the world leader in the design and manufacture of precision single and multi-axis Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) based quartz rate sensors that feature small size, light weight, internal electronics, fast start-up, and proven high MTBF. Since the mid 1980s, SDI’s solid-state quartz MEMS rate sensors have been the choice for use in applications ranging from commercial industrial instrumentation and commercial aircraft avionic systems to sophisticated military and space systems. In addition to off-the-shelf rate sensors, SDI offers specialized performance options and custom packaging for single and multi-axis applications.
Examples of applications include:
- Platform Stabilization
- Flight Control
- Short Term Navigation
- Instrumentation
- Robotics
- Flight Testing
- Attitude Reference
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IMUs
Systron Donner Inertial offers Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) based on their legendary quartz MEMS sensors. These SDI-brand IMUs feature industry-leading reliability in a lightweight package and provide a unique combination of a low noise output signal and a very compact form factor.
Typical applications include:
- Commercial and General Aviation Instrumentation
- Heading for Land Navigation, UAVs and Robotics
- EO/IR Pod and Antenna Stabilization
- GPS/INS and AHRS Integrations
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GPS-aided INS
Systron Donner Inertial’s GPS-aided INS products offer C/A-code GPS receivers tightly-coupled by a 28-state Kalman filter to IMUs based on their legendary quartz MEMS inertial sensors. Two distinct performance categories and package sizes are available with the C-MIGITS and the smaller MMQ-G products. Both offer ultra-reliable performance and a unique combination of heading accuracy with impressive Size, Weight, Power, RS-232 interface and user-friendly software to support ease of system development.
Typical applications include:
- Position & heading sensor for aerial geo-survey, LiDAR, SAR, EO/IR, GMTI, GIS, and hyperspectrial imagery
- Flight Control and Autopilot for UAVs, targets, and drones
- Heading and Navigation for Robotic vehicles
- Ground vehicle tracking, aircraft instrumentation, and flight testing
- Platform Stabilization for airborne payloads, cameras, antennas, etc.
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Servo Accelerometers
Servo accelerometers precisely measure response to linear or rotational accelerations.
- Many qualified models are available for use on helicopters, aircraft, missiles, etc.
- May also be used for industrial, military, scientific and space applications where accurate, stable rate or acceleration measurements are required
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Electrical Protection
Crouzet is the European leader for electrical protection devices in aerospace applications. They provide a full range of standard and customized products, including: thermal circuit breakers (1 or 3 poles, 1A to 50A), arc fault circuit breakers (parallel and serial arcs), circuit breaker panels (harness or PCB technologies), and solid state circuit breaker modules (28Vdc or 115Vac applications, ARINC or CAN communication bus interface).
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Cockpit Equipment and Devices
Crouzet and Kavlico are the industry leaders for pilot grips, control wheels, push buttons and joy sticks (mechanical or electronic). Their products have a fully customized ergonomic shape, aluminum or plastic technology, and fast prototyping capability. They meet all requirements from military to luxury business jet applications.
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Force Sensors
Kavlico is the largest supplier of aircraft force sensors which are used in a multitude of commercial aircraft applications. Each sensor is custom-made for the load and electrical characteristics of each aircraft platform. Their force sensors are comprised of a precisely machined spring and internally placed LVDTs. The compression or tension movement of the spring deflects the LVDT. The voltage and signal output are calibrated to correspond to the force input. These sensors are available in single or multiple channel designs.
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Pressure Sensors
Kavlico has a selection of pressure and combined pressure and temperature sensors for turbine inlet pressure, hydraulic steam health monitoring and high-pressure hydraulic actuator measurements for aerospace applications. Currently, Kavlico sensors are on the F35 program. Pressure ranges from 1" H20 to 10,000 psi. Sensors can be specified with amplified or non-amplified output, and they produce measurements of repeatable high accuracy.
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Servo Systems
BEI Precision Systems & Space Company’s patented Ultraloc system, used on the Hubble Space Telescope, is the world standard for precise movement.
- Method allows precise synchronization of multiple axes
- Programmable range of operational velocities and servo constants
- Well-suited for use with modern interpolated optical encoders, resolvers, or inductosyns
- Inherently insensitive to noisy environments
- Full custom solution capability
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Optical Scanners
BEI Precision Systems & Space Company’s optical scanners are used in several of the most demanding military infrared applications. They offer three types of optical scanners:
- Flip-flop – used for one-axis scanning, but often paired for multiple axes
- Rotary – used for one-axis scanning with simple optical polygon or for two-axis scanning with tilted-facet polygons
– Versions have been built that spin at speeds up to 6000 RPM
– Allows precise location at center of facet in time and space - Dither – used for two-axis scanning
– Allows precise location of center of field for limited angle scanning
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