International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The Common Airborne Instrumentation System (CAIS) was developed under the auspices of the Department of Defense to promote standardization, commonality, and interoperability among flight test instrumentation. The central characteristic of CAIS is a common suite of equipment used across service boundaries and in many airframe and weapon systems. The CAIS system has many advanced capabilities which must be tested during ground support and system test. There is a need for a common set of low cost, highly capable ground support hardware and software tools to facilitate these tasks. The ground support system should combine commonly available PC-based telemetry tools with unique devices needed for CAIS applications (such as CAIS Bus Emulator, CAIS Hardware Simulator, etc.). An integrated software suite is imperative to support this equipment. A CAIS Ground Support Unit (GSU) has been developed to promote these CAIS goals. This paper presents the capabilities and features of a PC-based CAIS GSU, emphasizing those features that are unique to CAIS. Hardware tools developed to provide CAIS Bus Emulation and CAIS Hardware Simulation are also described.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The US Government originally funded the development of the Common Airborne Instrumentation System (CAIS) to address industry-wide compatibility, maintenance, and commonality issues. Although initially targeted for US Department of Defense (DoD) programs, CAIS is also being used throughout the world in many commercial applications. This paper provides a fresh look at the evolution of the CAIS concept starting with some historical background of the CAIS Program, an overview of the CAIS System Architecture and recent trends in the use of “Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS)” products and technology.