Adding New Functions to the Remote Airfield Lighting System

There are many remote airfields that are not connected to the power grid. Providing adequate lighting to these airfields is necessary and challenging. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has sponsored a research project, Remote Airfield Lighting Systems (RALS), through the Center for General Aviation Research (CGAR). The findings from the RALS research specified a light that had low power needs and a color/intensity to meet the requirements for airfield identification and landing. To make these lights more appropriate to wide spread applications, the research team is conducting an exemplary operational test. In this paper, we discuss the new functions added to these lights for the operational test, including both automatically/remotely switching on/off the lights and smart charging of the batteries using solar panels under the control of a microcontroller. In addition, we consider future new functions such as low cost pilot controlled lighting as well as wireless networking for health monitoring and controlling of the lighting system. These new functions can greatly improve the convenience of the usage of RALS while keeping the same low cost.