Environmentally Friendly Fill Fluid

Based on the success of Phase I in the design of new fiber-opticcable plants for aircraft, we will design, develop and test aprototype optical cable plant with three nodes and multiplewavelengths during the Phase II program. Both wavelength divisionmultiplexing and subcarrier multiplexing of multiple signals willbe investigated. The fiber-optic cable plant will be designed withthe goal of installation on a tactical aircraft. Phase II willallow testing in the Navy's EA-6B block 89A at the Naval AirWarfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) Point Mugu, CA. The PhaseII work will allow network design, performance testing for bothdigital and analog signals, cost, maintenance, health monitoring,and availability issues to be considered. The network will bedesigned for providing signal transport of one digital signal(1553B) and three RF signals over the optical cable plant. Thepotential advantages of fiber-optic information transport systemsfor mobile platforms such as aircraft is well documented.Fiber-optic data busses for aerospace applications offer thepotential to simplify the harness complexity, reduce weight,improve EMI/EMP immunity, simplify installation and reducemaintenance, while vastly increasing the data carrying capacity.