DO-160, first issued in 1975 and now at revision G (December 2010), sets laboratory test conditions that give confidence an avionics unit keeps working in the environments an aircraft produces. It is published by RTCA, with EUROCAE ED-14 as its European equivalent. It does not set pass levels for a given aircraft; it defines test categories, and the equipment maker or installer chooses the category that fits the intended installation.
The sections cover temperature and altitude, temperature variation, humidity, operational shocks and crash safety, vibration, explosion proofness, waterproofness, fluids susceptibility, sand and dust, fungus, salt fog, magnetic effect, power input, voltage spike, audio and radio-frequency susceptibility, emission of radio-frequency energy, lightning, icing and electrostatic discharge. Each section has categories identified by letters and numbers, so a unit is described by the sections tested and the category reached in each.
For drones and eVTOL aircraft, DO-160 data is requested for flight-critical electronics and for units installed in the airframe near motors and power electronics, where vibration, power-input and EMI conditions are demanding. A datasheet may list “DO-160G sections 4, 5, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22” with categories, or only “tested to DO-160”.
A frequent mistake is to compare products by the statement “DO-160 compliant” alone. Without the revision, sections and categories, it is impossible to tell whether the unit was tested for vibration category suited to a rotorcraft or only for benign conditions. Also, many tests are run on a sample at a laboratory and do not equal a certified installation.
