DO-160 Testing

DO-160 testing qualifies airborne equipment against the environmental conditions and test procedures in RTCA DO-160. The standard’s full title is Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment. Published by RTCA, it serves as aviation’s environmental test standard for airborne equipment on fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.  It covers the climatic, dynamic, power, and electromagnetic stresses an aircraft installation can place  on a line-replaceable unit. Teams certifying avionics, defense, or advanced air-mobility hardware for flight often run a scoped set of DO-160 tests.

The standard carries regulatory weight. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recognizes DO-160 as an acceptable means of environmental qualification for airborne equipment, and it points to revision G for new articles. As of July 2026, DO-160G remains the current published revision, published in 2010 and referenced by FAA Advisory Circular AC 21-16G. DO-160H is in final development, so confirm the applicable revision before starting a new qualification program. RTCA DO-160 testing verifies whether airborne equipment can maintain required performance under defined environmental test conditions.Each section pairs test methods with pass criteria, which makes DO-160 a performance test standard as well as an environmental one. 

Treat DO-160 as a test campaign to plan and budget for, not a single test you book and forget.The sections you run, the order you run them, and the failures you catch early all shape the schedule and cost. For an equipment-focused companion, see the Keysight avionics test guide for DO-160 and ARINC 429 and the aerospace and defense used equipment hub.

DO-160 has 26 sections plus 3 appendices. The climatic and dynamic sections cover temperature, altitude, humidity and condensation, water and fluids susceptibility, sand and dust, fungus, salt fog, icing conditions, vibration, and shock. Most need an accredited laboratory chamber or shaker. Most DO-160 aerospace testing campaigns run a subset based on the equipment type and its aircraft installation location.

For avionics environmental testing, many electrical risks sit in the power and EMC sections, Sections 16 through 22. Within that group, Sections 16 and 17 stand out for in-house screening because they apply defined disturbances to the power input. You can reproduce many of those conditions on a bench with a supply, a generator, and an oscilloscope.

The table below maps the sections most relevant to electrical design and shows which ones you can realistically screen before the lab.

For the emissions testing, the matching instrument is a measuring receiver such as the used N9048A/B PXE EMI test receiver. For the terms in this guide, the oscilloscope glossary is a quick reference.

Qualification failures can happen, and the larger cost often comes from the re-test, not the initial test. Industry data commonly attributed to an Intertek study indicates that roughly 50% of products fail EMI/EMC testing on the initial attempt, with a further 5 to 7% failing the re-test. Each failed cycle can force redesign, re-booking, and re-testing.

The numbers can add up fast. An accredited re-test cycle commonly runs $20,000 to $50,000, and full DO-160 testing takes 4 to 12 weeks (Compliance Engineering, citing Intertek). A failure is rarely one charge. It can include the re-test fee, debug time, and the schedule hit of re-booking the lab.

The delay itself carries a measurable cost. A Keysight-commissioned survey of 305 test engineers, published in Avoid Costly Delays with Priority Access to Expert Resources, found that more than 90% of companies reported revenue loss because of preventable equipment-related delays, and 53% reported $100,000 or more of waste per day while waiting to resolve a critical issue. Electronic Specifier reported the same survey findings independently.

Every Section 16 or 17 issue you catch on your bench is one less failure to discover at the lab. For the broader economics, see Keysight's fundamentals of EMC pre-compliance.

In-house pre-compliance screening is a bench rehearsal for the lab’s power-input and voltage-spike tests.You power the unit, apply the disturbance, and capture what happens at the power input before formal submission.The formal test conducted under the program's approved qualification and certification process still follows, but you enter it with fewer unknowns.

The bench rehearsal follows four steps:

• Power the unit from a programmable supply or apply the spike with a generator that reproduces the Section 16 or 17 disturbance. 
• Probe the power input with an isolated or differential probe rated for the bus voltage and the expected spike level.
• Capture the event on a high-resolution oscilloscope with deep memory.
• Review the response for rail droop during an interruption, ripple amplitude against the limit, and whether the unit resets, latches, or recovers after a spike.

These are the signatures that often lead to lab failures, and they are easier to see on a bench oscilloscope with enough resolution and memory.

Correlate power and bus behavior where you can. Capture a Section 16 or 17 power event alongside ARINC 429 or MIL-STD-1553 bus traffic on one instrument, because intermittent avionics faults can appear when a power event overlaps with a bus transaction. A multi-channel mixed-signal oscilloscope lets you see both at once.

Keep the evidence traceable. Use calibrated instruments and export the waveform records so the data can support the qualification package.To set up probing and capture, see how to select oscilloscope probes, oscilloscope triggering to isolate a rare spike, and current probes for inrush.

Your bench is only as trustworthy as the instrument's resolution, noise floor, and memory. Get these right, and your screen is more credible. Get them wrong, and you may miss the issue the lab will later catch.

Start with vertical resolution. A 14-bit ADC offers 64 times the quantization resolution of a conventional 8-bit oscilloscope, which matters when a small disturbance rides on a 28 V rail. Usable resolution also depends on the noise floor, which is why Effective Number of Bits matters more than headline bit depth. Keysight's InfiniiVision HD3 pairs a 14-bit ADC with a 50 microvolt RMS noise floor and deep memory to deliver 4 times the resolution and half the noise floor of general-purpose oscilloscopes (Keysight Application Note 5991-4088; InfiniiVision HD3, 2024).

Memory depth comes next. Deep memory preserves sample rate over long interruption and recovery windows and keeps detailed pre-trigger and post-trigger context around short transients. Channel count follows: a 4-analog-plus-16-digital mixed-signal oscilloscope correlates multiple rails and buses at once.

The buying rule is simple. Match the instrument specs to the DO-160 condition, not to the brochure. The table below maps each spec to the requirement it serves.

For the fundamentals, see the oscilloscope performance basics and the signal integrity glossary entry, or start at the oscilloscope basics hub.

For DO-160 Section 16 and 17 screening, the recommended instrument is the Keysight InfiniiVision HD3 (HD304MSO). Its native 14-bit ADC resolves 16,384 vertical levels, its low-noise front end reaches a 50 µVRMS noise floor, and up to 100 Mpts of memory preserves sample rate across a long interruption and recovery window. The HD3 offers 4 analog plus 16 digital channels and spans 200 MHz to 1 GHz bandwidth. With the right decode option, it can correlate ARINC 429 or MIL-STD-1553 traffic alongside the power rails.

Think of the lineup as a value-to-capability ladder. Used InfiniiVision MSOX models cover mainstream multi-bus screening at a lower price than new. Higher-channel Infiniium MXR and MSOS models suit power-plus-bus work that needs more channels or bandwidth. Buying certified used or OEM-remanufactured can put that capability on your bench at a lower price than new.

Check live stock and pricing by tier: the Keysight InfiniiVision HD3 (HD304MSO) for 14-bit Section 16/17 capture, the InfiniiVision MSOX4154A for mainstream multi-bus screening, and the Infiniium MXR608A for 8-channel power-plus-bus work.

Three things decide whether a given HD3 listing will actually screen your sections, so confirm them on the product page before you order:

• Memory depth, because a Section 16 interruption and recovery window has to fit in one acquisition at a sample rate that still resolves fast detail. Confirm the memory option on the listing rather than assuming the platform maximum.
• The aerospace decode package (HD300AERA), if you intend to correlate ARINC 429 or MIL-STD-1553 traffic with the power rails. It is a licensed option, so check whether it is already enabled.
• Calibration status and included probes, since your Section 16 and 17 records have to be traceable, and the isolated or differential probe rated for your bus and spike level may not be part of the listing.
   

Used inventory rotates, so a nearby configuration can often be brought up to the requirement. Availability changes as instruments are purchased and new units are listed. If the exact model or bandwidth is unavailable, check whether a close configuration supports what your Section 16 and 17 screening actually needs:

• Bandwidth on many InfiniiVision models can be upgraded after purchase, within the limits of the specific platform. For Section 16 and 17 work, vertical resolution and memory depth do more for the measurement than headline bandwidth, so a lower-bandwidth unit is often still the right instrument.
• Serial decode, including the aerospace package that covers ARINC 429 and MIL-STD-1553, is usually a software license, so it can often be added after purchase rather than deciding which unit you buy.
• Some DSOX models can be upgraded with mixed-signal capability through a software license plus the matching digital-channel probe kit, so a DSOX listing can be a practical alternative when the MSOX configuration you wanted is unavailable.

Supported options vary by model, current configuration, bandwidth, and platform, and the required license or probe kit may be priced separately from the listed instrument. Check the model-specific details, including the installed options and the supported upgrade ceiling, rather than relying on a series name alone. Confirm the upgrade path on the product page before you order, create an account for stock alerts, or tell us your DO-160 sections and bus voltages and we will match an available instrument when you request a quote.
 

It is reasonable to question a used instrument purchase, so let’s answer the concern directly. The doubt is usually about reliability, calibration, and support, not price. The price case is strong: certified used instruments can save 40 to 90% versus new, with up to 5 years warranty options.

The ownership math is where it gets clear. One avoided re-test cycle, at $20,000 to $50,000, can offset much of the cost of a certified used screening oscilloscope. After that, the bench can be reused across future qualification programs, so the savings can compound.

There is a sustainability case too. The UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024 reports a record 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, with only 22.3% formally collected and recycled. Extending the working life of capable instruments through the refurbished market helps keep usable hardware out of the waste stream. That is a procurement target many teams now track.

Before you compare on price alone, read why a low-priced scope can cost more.

Not all used is equal, and the source matters. Every instrument sold through the Official Keysight Used Equipment Store is inspected and tested by the OEM before it is listed, with calibration as stated on each unit and a fresh Keysight calibration option where offered. Up to 5 years of warranty options and KeysightCare technical support are available as options, and OEM software and hardware customization can be arranged so the unit matches your application.

Keysight Premium Used is the higher tier. Those instruments are OEM-remanufactured and tested to the same quality requirements as new, with current firmware, software, accessories, and warranty coverage, and each one passes a final 101-point quality inspection covering function, performance, and condition. The difference from broker refurbishment is the OEM behind the work.

Traceability matters for qualification evidence. A credible certified-used instrument is tested and calibrated so your measurements can link back through a documented chain. For the full picture, see the used oscilloscope buying guide and the 15 features to check before buying.

Buying direct from the manufacturer changes the risk profile. You get OEM calibration and customization, warranty options, and a support team you can reach, instead of relying on a broker’s description. For procurement, that means a known supplier path, clearer lifecycle and end-of-support information, and in-stock equipment that may ship faster than a new-build order.

That addresses the main used-equipment concern. Used test equipment bought direct from the OEM keeps the savings while reducing the risks engineers and procurement teams often associate with used equipment: unclear condition, uncertain options, and limited support.

Plan your DO-160 effort in four steps: scope the sections you actually need, screen Sections 16 and 17 in-house, size the instrument to the transient, and compare used versus new based on total cost. The capability you put in place now is reusable at every qualification push, so it pays off across the whole budget cycle, not just this program.

If you are scoping for a later purchase, create a complimentary Used Equipment Portal account to save favorites and get stock alerts. If you are ready now, browse the certified used inventory and request a quote.