International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1992 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / SAIC, under contract with the Air Force Wright Laboratory, has developed and demonstrated a prototype High Speed Avionics Data Instrumentation System (HADIS). The HADIS system is designed to operate in both the laboratory and in an airborne environment. This paper briefly describes the features of the system including its ability to collect and record data at up to 13.25 MBytes per second, its ability to provide real-time processing of the data, and its ability to rapidly reconfigure its interfaces based on field programmable gate arrays. The paper discusses the need for multiple data paths within the system to allow parallel operations to take place, the need for dedicated access to the recorder subsystem, and methods for allowing selective recording based on the information content of the data. The effort was sponsored by the Test Facility Working Group to provide a common data collection system for Air Force logistics and test and evaluation facilities. The design is owned by the government and may be cost-effectively used by any government agency.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / In order to meet the high-speed and high-density recording requirements for today's development and testing environments, we are seeking to merge the cutting edge technologies of tiny, high-performance disk drives and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to build a high-speed compact disk recorder (CHSDR). Specifically, we designed, built, and tested a multi-drive controller that handles the interleaving of data to eight inexpensive IDE drives. These drives and controller comprise a "cell" capable of transferring data at 2.45 MB/sec (4 to 5 times the rate of a single drive). Furthermore, these "cells" can be run in parallel (with a single controller interleaving data between the cells). This "tree" effect multiplies the data rate by the number of cells employed. For example, 8 cells (of 8 drives each) can reach nearly 20 MB/second (sustained) and can be built for less than $30,000. The drives we used are the size of match boxes (the Hewlett Packard KittyHawk). These tiny drives hold 42 megabytes each and can withstand 150 Gs while operating. The cell controller is a Xilinx 4005 FPGA. Furthermore, we've designed a 120 MB/sec RAM FIFO to buffer data entering the system (to account for unavoidable drive seek latencies). In short, the compact high-speed disk array is a small, relatively low cost recording solution for anyone requiring high data speed but modest data volume. Missile shots, nuclear tests, and other short-term experiments are good examples of such requirements.