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International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / As aircraft become more complex and require more resources over larger areas, the challenge of the test ranges is to provide economical solutions to move telemetry data from the test article to the data processing facility. Edwards AFB is in the process of upgrading the ground transmission facilities to transport data including telemetry using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). This paper documents the challenge of supporting telemetry over ATM, different approaches that are available, the benefits of using ATM, and discussion of candidate hardware options. The effort at Edwards include the linking of the major range facilities over a fiber optic backbone and links to other major test ranges in the Southwest Range Complex via microwave. The fiber optic backbone is expected to be OC-12c (622 Mbps) ATM supporting new capabilities as well as all of the legacy systems. The backbone system will be designed so that migration to OC-48 is possible without service disruption. The microwave links are multiple DS-3 capable. Some of these DS-3s may support legacy systems, but the ability to link ranges using ATM is expected simultaneously.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / As the flight test community moves into the 21st century, the ever increasing demand for higher telemetry data rates and the need to transport additional data types is becoming the challenge of every flight test range. The evolution of the flight test range has grown from low telemetry data rates and a few 2400 baud tracking sources into high-speed telemetry, GPS based tracking, networking, digital video, and more. Recognizing the need to change the way data is managed has resulted in an effort to redefine the work centers at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards AFB. The Technical Control Center (TCC) within the Ridley Mission Control Center at Edwards AFB is currently being relocated with the intent of achieving tomorrow’s vision, while supporting the missions of today. One major goal of this redefinition is the elimination of as much analog transmission equipment as possible in favor of digital transmission. The new digital range requires management of data and allocation of that management in different ways than the past. Moving to an all-digital range has advantages that are just now being realized. This paper outlines the current and future design, configuration, maintenance, and operation of the TCC and touches on how some of the other range functions are impacted. In addition, the challenges and benefits of implementing the next generation in range communications will be discussed.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a technology that is experiencing tremendous growth in the commercial telecommunications sector. Leveraging commercial investment and introducing ATM into today’s flight test range, while ensuring that all requirements are satisfied, are paying large dividends in capability and efficiency. The flight test community imposes unique requirements specifically with regards to telemetry that are not the norm of the commercial telecommunications industry. Efforts are underway at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC), Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) to implement an ATM system for all range communications. This paper addresses the unique requirements imposed by the flight test community, a revolutionary breakthrough from a commercial ATM vendor, and other challenges experienced while implementing this system. The system being implemented at Edwards will carry all types of range data over SONET/ATM hybrid equipment and interface to other flight test ranges and facilities over a mix of commercial leased lines and dedicated microwaves.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) can provide deterministic channels as required for real time signals, as well as statistical multiplexing. For this reason, ATM has been chosen as the underlying technology for providing a Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN). Two main classes of services are expected to be supported over a B-ISDN. These classes are real-time services and data services. Data services include computer communications (Local Area Network (LAN) interconnections) and general non-real time traffic, such as file transfer and small transactions.The provision of data services over ATM are better served with statistical multiplexing, provided that the service is loss-free. For multiplexing to be loss-free and still statistical, while the maximum service rate is fixed, the multiplexer tributaries must be controlled in flow, to assure no overflow of the multiplexing buffer. Provision of a service over ATM is accomplished by an ATM layer. Transfer Capability (ATC).This thesis investigates and reports on the operating characteristics of an ATM layer Transfer Capability proposed to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and called Controlled Cell Transfer (CCT). CCT uses credit window based flow control on links and a quota based control in switches, and will give loss free statistical multiplexing for data. Other ITU defined ATCs are examined in regard to data service provision and compared with CCT. It is found that only CCT can provide a fast and at the same time efficient data service.The thesis also examines the impact that support of the CCT capability would have on an ATM switch, through determination of required functionality, and mapping of the required functions into a switch design. Finally, an architecture and implementation of an ATM switch is described that would support the CCT as well as the Deterministic Bit Rate (DBR) ++ / transfer capability, and would provide efficient data and real-time services.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Due to Cost and Safety considerations the Range Division of the 412th Test Wing is upgrading remote telemetry (TM) antenna sites to be operated and monitored remotely. This is possible, in part, due to the installation of fiber optic cable, and the use of ATM communications protocol. Both of these applications significantly reduce signal latency from the remote control station located at Ridley Mission Control Center (RMCC) and the Antenna site. This paper discusses the challenges associated with controlling these sophisticated systems remotely. We will also describe the decisions and how they were made, the concerns over system performance, and the impact to other systems. This paper also addresses the technologies chosen to support the requirements and overcome the challenges. The benefits of remote range sensors are also discussed. We will provide top-level block diagrams of the system architecture.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The area of range telemetry and communications has been under budget constraints and interoperability enhancement requirements for some time. The near-term onslaught of multimedia communications offerings by telephony and communications companies is certain to cause range engineering personnel to conduct extensive research and possibly make numerous decisions on procurements and technologies before standards are finalized. This paper will address a low-risk migration path for range telemetry to the new multimedia communications for ranges based on current capabilities. This migration path has an end goal of positioning the ranges to take advantage of future multimedia communications as they become available, while leveraging off of current products and procurements, without a major investment.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / As technology progresses we are faced with ever increasing volumes and rates of raw and processed telemetry data along with digitized high resolution video and the less demanding areas of video conferencing, voice communications and general LAN-based data communications. The distribution of all this data has traditionally been accomplished by solutions designed to each particular data type. With the advent of Asynchronous Transfer Modes or ATM, a single technology now exists for providing an integrated solution to distributing these diverse data types. This allows an integrated set of switches, transmission equipment and fiber optics to provide multi-session connection speeds of 622 Megabits per second. ATM allows for the integration of many of the most widely used and emerging low, medium and high speed communications standards. These include SONET, FDDI, Broadband ISDN, Cell Relay, DS-3, Token Ring and Ethernet LANs. However, ATM is also very well suited to handle unique data formats and speeds, as is often the case with telemetry data. Additionally, ATM is the only data communications technology in recent times to be embraced by both the computer and telecommunications industries. Thus, ATM is a single solution for connectivity within a test center, across a test range, or between ranges. ATM can be implemented in an evolutionary manner as the needs develop. This means the rate of capital investment can be gradual and older technologies can be replaced slowly as they become the communications bottlenecks. However, success of this evolution requires some planning now. This paper provides an overview of ATM, its application to test ranges and telemetry distribution. A road map is laid out which can guide the evolutionary changeover from today's technologies to a full ATM communications infrastructure. Special applications such as the support of high performance multimedia workstations are presented.

Der Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) stellt die zukünftige und einheitliche Basistechnologie für das Breitband-ISDN dar. Da nahezu alle wesentlichen Protokollfunktionen in Hardware realisierbar sind, soll nachfolgend ein Überblick über bereits angebotene VLSI-Schaltkreise gegeben werden. Eine Systematisierung und Einordnung vorhandener ATM-Chips hinsichtlich ihrer Leistungsfähigkeit und ihres Funktionsumfangs erfolgt in Hinblick auf das sogenannte B-ISDN-Referenzmodell. Dieses Schichtenmodell definiert die notwendigen Protokolle und Schnittstellen für den Asynchronous Transfer Mode. Zum grundlegenden Verständnis wird einleitend eine kurze Einführung in die Basisprinzipien von ATM gegeben.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes a 300 Mega Bit Per Second (MBPS) Front End Processor (FEP) prototype completed in early 1993. The FEP implements a patent pending parallel frame synchronizer (frame sync) design in 12 Actel 1240 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA's). The FEP also provides (255,223) Reed-Solomon (RS) decoding and a High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) output interface. The recent introduction of large RAM based FPGA's allows greater high speed data processing integration and flexibility to be achieved. A proposed FEP implementation based on Altera 10K50 FPGA's is described. This design can be implemented on a single slot 6U VME module, and includes a PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) for a commercial Fibre Channel or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) output interface module. Concepts for implementation of (255,223) RS and Landsat 7 Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) decoding in FPGA's are also presented. The paper concludes with a summary of the advantages of high speed data processing in FPGA's over Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) based approaches. Other potential data processing applications are also discussed.