All commercial airplanes that carry more than 20 passengers and all sea merchant vessels with sizes\udabove 3000 gross tonnage must be equipped with flight/ voyage data recorders or more popularly known\udas black box. All black boxes aboard those vessels must be equipped with a completely independent\udultrasonic sonar finder device called Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB). In case the device is immersed\udin water due to an accident, this device will emit ultrasonic signal at 37.5 kHz of a certain pattern for\udthirty days. The chance of finding the vessel (an airplane or a ship) sinking in the ocean is almost solely\uddepend on the working order of this device.\udThe voyage/ flight data recorder performance must be tested every year per regulation of Air Transport\udAssociation/IATA (for airplanes) or International Maritime Organization/IMO (for sea vessels) under\udvery stringent rules and regulations. For an airplane there are two data recorders, which are the flight data\udrecorder (FDR) and cockpit audio voice recorder (CAVR) and for a sea vessel there is Voyage Data\udRecorder (VDR). During the annual performance test, the system will go very rigorous test in recording\udthe data from all aspects of parameters in the sea vessels or the airplane for up to six hours. Unfortunately\udthe ULB will only be tested – usually – by the technician for the voltage of the battery and also the\udexpiration date of the battery only. The important part from the ULB – transmission of ultrasonic signal\udand pattern of the signal – is not addressed during the annual test, although this is one the most important\udfactor in finding the vessel if she sinks in the deep ocean.\udThe work presented here is about testing the ULB for its performance using simple system by the use of a\udmicroprocessor. The tester will check the voltage of the battery inside the ULB, the expected length of\udusage of the battery, the generation of the ultrasonic signal at 37.5 kHz, and also about the pattern of the\udsignal. The device designed and built will be small and easy to use with good visual and audio feedback\udto indicate the result of the UTB test.\udAt the termination of this work, a working system to test a ULB on the voltage and also detection of the\udultrasonic signal has been built which is small and intelligent. The usage of the system is very simple,\udjust by inserting the ULB into the system and pressing the unit for five seconds, a thorough result of the\udULB test is presented on an LCD screen together with a blinking color light emitting diode (LED) and\udaudible sound via buzzer to prove that the ULB under test is in good working order.
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