ITC/USA 2009 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fifth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 26-29, 2009 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Flight test instrumentation/data processing environments consist of three components: * Airborne Data Acquisition System * Telemetry Control Room * Post Test Data Processing System While these three components require the same setup information, most often they are configured separately using a different tool for each system. Vendor supplied tools generally do not interact very well with hardware other than their own. This results in the multiple entry of the configuration information. Multiple entries of data for large complex systems are susceptible to data entry errors as well as version synchronization issues. This paper describes the successful implementation of a single Microsoft Excel based tool being used to program the instrumentation data acquisition hardware, the real-time telemetry system, and the post test data processing system on an active test program. This tool leverages the XML interfaces provided by vendors of telemetry equipment.

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 / One of the principle goals of the Integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) program is to help flight-test engineers configure their data acquisition systems more rapidly. This will allow them to focus more of their energies on the collection of data rather than on the design and configuration of their data acquisition hardware. Currently most flight-test engineers spend the majority of their time configuring their data acquisition systems to acquire data for test flights. Typically, the flight test engineers must manually transform the requirements that are given to them into actual measurements from the data acquisition system. This process forces the flight test engineers to become experts in the implementation details of their data acquisition systems. This paper will discuss a possible design for an automatic hardware selection system. This system would allow flight test engineers to step away from the implementation details of their data acquisition system and focus instead on the parameter data that the system is acquiring. The key design goal for this system is to create a mechanism that can automatically transform the requirements for a flight test program into a list of hardware that can accomplish the desired task.

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 / Modern telemetry systems require flexible sampling rates for analog signal conditioning within telemetry encoders in order to optimize mission formats for varying data acquisition needs and data rate constraints. Implementing a variable sample rate signal conditioning module for a telemetry encoder requires consideration of several possible architectural topologies that place different system requirements on data acquisition modules within the encoder in order to maintain adequate signal fidelity of sensor information. This paper focuses on the requirements, design considerations and tradeoffs associated with differing architectural topologies for implementing a variable sample rate signal conditioning module and the resulting implications on the encoder system's data acquisition units.

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 / In this paper we describe extensions to the Instrument Hardware Abstraction Language (IHAL). Since IHAL was first presented to ITC in 2006, a number of improvements were made to the design of IHAL. Major changes to the schema include splitting it into multiple XML Schema (XSD) files, separation of the description of instrumentation functions from the description of the hardware, and addition of a function pool.

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 current paradigm for data acquisition and recording systems for flight test applications does not meet today's demand for high reliability and timing performance. Such systems are better served through a network-based approach that can provide the capacity at which systems must acquire, record, process, and telemeter data. As with any complex system, this approach does have challenges. This paper describes the methods used to develop a network-centric flight test system, including simulators, IEEE 1588 time synchronization, network message protocols, and addresses the integration issues involved such as network topology and reliable latency-bounded throughput. Solutions used in overcoming these integration issues in previous system designs are also presented.

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 / Network-based instrumentation systems are rapidly replacing traditional fixed serial interconnected instrumentation in both commercial and military flight test environments. Modern network-based flight test systems are composed of large numbers of devices including high-speed network switches, data acquisition devices, recorders, telemetry interfaces, and wireless network transceivers, all of which must be managed in a coordinated fashion. Management of the network system includes configuring, controlling, and monitoring the health and status of the various devices. Configuration by hand is not a realistic option, so algorithms for automatic management must be implemented to make these systems economical and practical. This paper describes the issues that must be addressed for managing network-based flight test systems and describes a network management approach that was developed and employed to manage a large-scale network-based flight test system.

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 / The development of network-based data acquisition systems has resulted in a new architecture for supporting flight instrumentation that has the potential to revolutionize the way we test our aircraft. However, the inherent capability and flexibility in a networked test architecture can only be realized by the flight engineer if a sufficiently powerful toolset is available that can configure and manage the system. This paper introduces the concept of an instrumentation configuration and management system (ICMS) that acts as the central resource for configuring, controlling, and monitoring the instrumentation network. Typically, the ICMS supports a graphical user interface into the workings of the instrumentation network, providing the user with a friendly and efficient way to verify the operation of the system. Statistics being gathered at different peripherals within the network would be collected by this tool and formatted for interpretation by the user. Any error conditions or out-of-bounds situations would be detected by the ICMS and signaled to the user. Changes made to the operation of any of the peripherals in the network (if permitted) would be managed by the ICMS to ensure consistency of the system. Furthermore, the ICMS could guarantee that the appropriate procedures were being followed and that the operator had the required privileges needed to make any changes. This paper describes the high-level design of a modular and multi-platform ICMS and its use within the measurement-centric aircraft instrumentation network architecture under development by the Network Products Division at Teletronics.

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 / Modern aircraft now employ widely accepted and standardized technology commonly found in COTS applications. One such technology, Fibre Channel, has been deployed to transport both low and high-speed measurement data. Data as varied as “command and control”, “Radar Sensors” and “video” are being transmitted over fibre channel on many aircrafts. Some of these applications require data monitoring in listening mode only where transmission from the instrumentation equipment is not allowed or possible. As a result, standard off the shelf Fibre Channel devices cannot be used, and a development of a general purpose Fibre Channel monitor/ analyzer device and product is required. This paper discusses the concept, merits, and implementation of fibre channel bus monitoring in modern data acquisition systems. Techniques for tapping into an optical fibre channel network, as well as, a recording format for IRIG106 Chapter 10 are included. An overview of fibre channel topologies and protocols is also provided.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The On-board Data Interface Module (ODIM) was developed specifically to provide real-time casualty assessment telemetry data for the training environment on the instrumented range system at the U. S. Army National Training Center (NTC) located at Ft. Irwin, California. Real-time data acquisition and telemetry systems, such as the ODIM, which enhance the feed back capabilities of fielded training systems are becoming increasingly important to the Department of Defense in these times of shrinking defense budgets and decreasing global stability. The ODIM is designed to combine, process and transmit data from the AH-64 (Apache) 1553 data bus, the Aircraft Survivability Equipment (ASE) threat warnings, the on-board training system laser belt, cockpit kill indicators, and status data. The ODIM also downlinks the stored data though the Micro-B transceiver on the AH-64A. For the application at the NTC, the ODIM looks for very specific data from the AH-64 and the MILES/AGES II system. However, the ODIM is programmable to collect any of the data available from these systems. The uplink/ downlink available through the Micro-B transceiver allows the user access to the ODIM's features even from a remote location.