ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Traditionally, acquired instrumentation data on a non-destructive test article is recorded to a nonvolatile memory recorder. The data acquisition system usually samples and formats its inputs before transmitting the data to the recorder (also known in this paper as a data sink) via a PCM serial data stream (i.e., clock and data). In a network-based data acquisition architecture, the inclusion of an IP-based recorder adds a new dimension to the data acquisition process. Any IP network inherently allows for the bi-directional exchange of data. In this environment, the IPbased recorder can be treated as both a data sink for parameter recording and a data source for parameter extraction, data rate statistics, and recorder status reporting. The network model recasts the data recorder’s function as a file server to which multiple clients could be simultaneously requesting services. Those clients that represent the data acquisition nodes are requesting storage of their acquired parameters. Clients, such as transmitters or test engineers, are requesting access to archived data or status information for further processing. This paper presents the advantages of using an IP-based recorder in a network-based data acquisition system. The availability of an IP interface along with the intelligence built into the recorder expands its capabilities beyond that of a conventional PCM recorder. These capabilities include real-time health monitoring, support for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), data mining, reporting of real-time performance and network statistics.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Airborne data acquisition systems have changed very little over the years. Their growth has primarily been in the area of digital filtering and the acquisition of new avionic busses. Communication between data acquisition units operating as a system still employs Time Division Multiplexing scheme. These schemes utilize command and data busses like CAIS and PCM. Although this approach is highly efficient, it has many drawbacks. These drawbacks have resulted in rigid system architecture, system bandwidth limitations, highly specialized recorders to acquire unique avionic busses that would otherwise overwhelm the system bandwidth, and unidirectional flow of data and control. This paper describes a network centric data acquisition system that is Ethernet based. Although Ethernet is known as an asynchronous bus, the paper will describe a deterministic time distribution over the bus per IEEE-1588 that allows the use of a packet network for airborne data acquisition. The acquisition unit within the network system is defined by its MIB (Management Information Base) and operates as a data source unit. Other network components may operate as a data sink unit, such as recorders, or as a data source and sink. The role of different units in the network system will be evaluated. The paper will also describe network gateways that allow the use of traditional PCM systems with a network-based system.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / CTEIP has launched the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project to foster advances in networking and telemetry technology to meet emerging needs of major test programs as well as within the Major Range and Test Facility Base’s. This paper describes the objective of the vNET concept demonstration to provide a test vehicle instrumentation network architecture that can support additional capabilities for data access to the test vehicle. Three specific iNET system needs have been identified as being desirable as the basis for evaluating a Concept of Operation through this demonstration project. These three key areas are Data Mining, Gapless Telemetry, and Error Free Data delivery.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Telemetry Group (TG) of the Range Commanders Council (RCC) developed the Chapter 10 addition to the IRIG 106 standard to “establish a common interface standard for the implementation of solid-state digital data acquisition and on-board recording systems” ([1]). This standard is intended to allow the development of a common set of data playback/reduction software, minimizing the need for a large number of unique programs to handle proprietary data structures. This paper analyzes the Chapter 10 standard from a data processing perspective, providing insight into the benefits and challenges developers will face when writing Chapter 10 software.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Instrumentation recorders have evolved continuously over the years. Their growth has primarily been driven by technology advancements. The latest recording equipment generally utilizes hard disk, disk array, or solid-state storage technology, which results in greater capacity and performance. Most recorders integrate storage media with multiplexer electronics resulting in a highly efficient yet inflexible and physically large recording system. This paper describes an instrumentation multiplexer/recorder system using an open architecture between the multiplexer and the storage media that allows insertion of conventional recording technologies. This approach provides a generalized solution with enough flexibility and scalability to address the majority of instrumentation recording needs. This system is based on the latest IRIG-106 chapter 10 standard, thus supporting interoperability throughout the flight test community.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Wideband data acquisition units have been used as part of an instrumentation system for several decades. Historically, these units operated asynchronously from each other, and from the rest of the instrumentation system when installed on the same test vehicle. When many wideband units are required to slave their formats or sampling rate to the test vehicle’s event of interest such as external computer event clock, radar, or laser pulse train; few solutions were available. Additionally, a single test vehicle may use ten to thirty wideband units operating at up to 20 Mbps each. Such systems present a challenge to the instrumentation engineers to synchronize, transmit safety of flight information, and record. This paper will examine a distributed wideband data acquisition system in which each acquisition unit operates under its own data rate and format, yet remains fully synchronized to an external fixed or variable simultaneous sampling rate to provide total system coherency. The system aggregate rate can be as low as a few Mbps to as high as 1 Gbps. Data acquired from the acquisition units is further multiplexed per IRIG-106 chapter 10 using distributed data multiplexers for recording.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Telemetry recorders have historically been used as standalone systems with each user responsible for operation and data interpretation on that system. Utilizing the latest peerto- peer networking technologies, telemetry recorders can now be linked to provide instantaneous communication between systems. This fully distributed, network-based architecture can be used for command and control of multiple recorders, as well as message passing between them. A centralized server is no longer required, resulting in considerable logistical and cost savings. The peer-to-peer communication topology can efficiently connect telemetry recorder “islands of information”.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / With the growing interest in networked data acquisition there has been a lot of focus on networked data acquisition systems. However, the requirements of a flight test instrumentation system go beyond networked DAU's. For example, a FTI network fabric has particular requirements for switches, time grandmasters, recorders, data servers and network terminals to the ground. This paper discusses these components and how they inter-operate in a single, fully networked system and discusses some FTI oriented requirements for same. Where relevant, we discuss the results of some experiments with network latencies; packet losses etc. and discuss some enhancements that can contribute to improved efficiency for flight test programs.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The US Army Research Laboratory has been involved in the design and implementation of electromagnetic gun technology for the past several years. One of the primary factors of this research is an accurate assessment of in-bore structural loads on the launch projectiles. This assessment is essential for the design of mass-efficient launch packages for electromagnetic guns. If not properly accounted for, projectile failure can result. In order to better understand the magnitude of the in-bore loads, a data-recorder was integrated with an armature and on-board payload that included tri-directional accelerometers and magnetic field sensors. Several packages were launched from an electromagnetic railgun located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. Substantial effort was placed on soft-catching the rounds in order to facilitate data recovery. Analysis of the recovered data provided acceleration and magnetic field data acquired during the launch event.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Migrating analog architectures and equipments to network architectures is underway all across the globe. There is no doubt, a modern instrument must fit the network environment or simply will not be procured. Yet, funding constraints temper wholesale changes to net-centric technologies. The last analog stronghold in our data center is the oscillograph. Over 50 Gould TA 6000 Oscillographs reside at White Sands Missile Range. These are digital implementations of analog recorders, hence require analog signaling. Digital telemetry data (most common format) must be converted to analog to drive an oscillograph that converts analog back to digital to plot the data. The oscillograph’s interface board may be “hacked” by removing the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) gaining direct access to the digital signal path. This idea was worth attempting as the prospect of replacing that many recorders with the newer network driven oscillographs is costly hence remote. This paper’s topic is the conversion of the hardware and a discussion on software issues. Though not pretty, it does preserve the large recorder investment for the time being. Issues with analog signaling, such as noise, drift and ground loops are gone. A commercial ethernet to digital adapter drives the new digital interface and transforms the recorder into an net-centric instrument.