International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Common Airborne Instrumentation System (CAIS) is being developed by the Department of Defense through a Tri-service Program Office. The goals of the program are two fold. The first is to develop an instrumentation system that will meet the needs of the Air Force, Army, and Navy into the next century. The system is designed to support a full breadth of applications from a few parameters to engineering and management and development programs. The second is to provide a system that is airframe as well as activity independent. To accomplish these goals, the CAIS consists of two segments. The airborne segment consists of a system controller with a suite of data acquisition units. The system is configured with only the units that are required. The ground segment consists of a variety of support equipment. The support equipment enables the user to generate formats, load/verify airborne units, perform system level diagnostics and more.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / Since becoming an ANSI standard in 1994, Fibre Channel has matured into a high-speed reliable data communication solution. Fibre Channel uses point-to-point, arbitrated loop, or switched topologies, to provide a wide range of options for data storage and highspeed data transfer applications. Unlike Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel supports protocols such as HIPPI-FP, SCSI and IPI, allowing for greater flexibility when designing systems. However, the wide range of options supported in the Fibre Channel standard can be the source of misunderstanding and incompatibility. This paper intends to clear up some of the misconceptions about Fibre Channel by presenting the current standard and discussing how Fibre Channel can be used in data acquisition systems. Since these systems often require extremely high throughput for routing data, as well as high speed data storage to long term media, solutions are not often cut and dry. This paper will give examples of how using different layers of the Fibre Channel protocol will meet the needs of today’s data acquisition requirements. It provides a brief overview of Fibre Channel technology and identifies the different types of Fibre Channel products available. It provides examples of how commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products can be used to build data acquisition and storage systems requiring throughputs of up to 90 Mbytes per second on a single fiber. Additionally, it shows how multiple fibers can be used to achieve much higher data rates.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The purpose of this paper is to present a broad view of the impact of network architectures on future data acquisition systems. The major advantages and challenges associated with the use of network architectures are rooted in the packetized structure of the data. Many of the issues raised are subtle and complex. It is not the intent of this paper to give these issues the thorough academic and technical analysis they deserve. It is the hope of the authors this paper will generate awareness and discussion on these issues.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1985 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada / A key milestone for every telemetry design is that date when everyone agrees on a definition of the design requirements. Unfortunately, specifications often become obscured as test constraints change, additional requirements are uncovered, test objectives are more clearly defined, and budgets are cut in half. Historically, telemetry designs using technology, hardware, and philosophy that pre-date Christopher Columbus have caused obvious rigidity to the system design and its operation. Once completed, program managers become ruefully aware that these systems are difficult (if not impossible) to modify and are always very costly to change. Telemetry systems available today offer the flexibility necessary to accommodate a frequently changing measurement list. Not only can the measurement list be changed, it can be changed during the course of a test in progress. If requirements expand, hardware may be added. If the test is a non-destructive test, the system can be configured for use on future programs.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1989 / Town & Country Hotel & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes the changes in signal conditioning techniques used on flight test programs in recent years. Improved sensors require improved signal conditioning. Advanced distributed data acquisition systems, used on major flight test programs, move the signal conditioning closer to the sensor for improved performance and reduced wiring throughout the vehicle. These distributed systems use digital communication between the master controller and the remote conditioning units for improved accuracy and noise immunity. This requires sample- and-hold amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, and serial encoder/decoders to be located at the signal conditioning location. The changes in signal conditioning designs are driven by the sensors, the architecture of the data acquisition systems, and by vehicle designs (smaller aircraft, smaller missiles, composite structures, and hypervelocity vehicles). A look at the signal conditioning technology employed in many of these systems as well as what is anticipated in the future is described in this paper.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / A small PCM telemetry system designed for the flight test telemetry task of a new rotorcraft is introduced in this paper. It can provide a flexible frame format which is completely set up by user in advance, to meet the requirements needed in different flight testing phases. In this telemetry system, the data are low in rate and volume but very valuable with stringent quality and transmission accuracy. Data encrypting and channel encoding techniques are employed to guarantee the quality and security of the data. The system architecture based on microprocessors is adopted in order to process the data flexibly. Real-time data processing, monitoring and post-flight analysis are performed by PC type computers. All key components of the system may be programmed. The cost of the total system integration is relatively reduced.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper discusses a “Smart Sensor” interface being developed for use in the Boeing Company. Several laboratory groups and Flight Test have joined in a study to define such an interface. It will allow a data acquisition system to record data from a large number of “Smart Sensors”. A single pair of wires will form a bus to interface the sensors to the data system. Most systems will need more than one bus. Some needs exist for "Smart Actuators" as well to allow for closed loop control within the laboratories. The process control industry has developed several candidate busses. The groups are now in the process of evaluating the capabilities of the available busses to see which ones, if any, will do our job. To see if anyone else has similar needs, these requirements and the candidate busses are being shared. The goal is to see if some form of cooperation is possible.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / NASA and Lockheed Martin Telemetry & Instrumentation have jointly developed a new data acquisition system for the Space Shuttle program. The system incorporates new technologies which will greatly reduce manpower requirements by automating many of the functions necessary to prepare the data acquisition system for each shuttle launch. This new system, the Automated Data Acquisition System (ADAS), is capable of configuring itself for each measurement without operator intervention. The key components of the ADAS are the Universal Signal Conditioning Amplifier (USCA), the Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS), and the Data Acquisition System (DAS 450). The ADAS is currently being delivered and installed at Kennedy Space Center. NASA and Telemetry & Instrumentation are actively pursuing commercialization of the ADAS and its associated products which will be available during 1996.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / PC based instrumentation and telemetry processing systems are attractive because of their ease of use, familiarity, and affordability. The evolution of PC computing power has resulted in a telemetry processing system easily up to most tasks, even for control of and processing of data from a very complex system such as the Common Airborne Instrumentation System (CAIS) used on the new Lockheed-Martin F-22. A complete system including decommutators, bit synchronizers, IRIG time code readers, simulators, DACs, live video, and tape units for logging can be installed in a rackmount, desktop, or even portable enclosure. The PC/104 standard represents another step forward in the PC industry evolution towards the goals of lower power consumption, smaller size, and greater capacity. The advent of this standard and the availability of processors and peripherals in this form factor has made possible the development of a new generation of portable low cost test equipment. This paper will outline the advantages and applications offered by a full-function, standalone, rugged, and portable instrumentation controller. Applications of this small (5.25"H x 8.0"W x 9.5"L) unit could include: flight line instrumentation check-out, onboard aircraft data monitoring, automotive testing, small craft testing, helicopter testing, and just about any other application where small-size, affordability, and capability are required.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Using acquisition networks requires an understanding of the capabilities, design constraints and limitations of each available network device. The proper use of bridges, routers and gateways become extremely important in large networks where dissimilar busses, protocols or applications may be found. As data acquisition networks become a reality, the instrumentation network engineer must understand the benefits of each of these network devices and when to use them.