Patent ID: 8281655

Claim:
A fuel gauging system for use on an aircraft having a fuel tank, the system comprising: a fuel computer unit; and one or more fuel probes configured to be mounted in the fuel tank, each fuel probe having a body disposed inside the fuel tank and at least partially submerged in fuel, a submerged fuel probe forming a capacitor with fuel as the dielectric, each fuel probe having a capacitance-to-digital (CDC) circuit disposed on the body, such that the CDC is disposed inside the fuel tank, wherein the CDC is disposed on the body of the fuel probe for measuring the capacitance of the capacitor, converting the measured capacitance to a digital representation of the measured capacitance, encoding the digital representation of the measured capacitance into a digital signal, and communicating the digital signal to the fuel computer unit for the fuel computer unit to calculate a quantity of fuel in the fuel tank based, at least in part, on the measured capacitance.