ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The 46th Test Wing, 846th Test Support Squadron (846 TSS/TSI) at Eglin AFB is currently evaluating their airspace for the use of SOQPSK transmitters and receivers for telemetry. The Squadron will incorporate an IP-compatible OFDM transceiver from Teletronics Technology Corporation (TTC) that will provide a two-way communication channel for controlling configuration settings of the airborne SOQPSK transmitter and receiver. This provides an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of an airborne network instrumentation system and measure some critical parameters, with an opportunity to assess the performance and reliability of streaming telemetry and OFDM-based IP communication systems. This paper describes the experimental test setup created for this evaluation and summarizes the measurement and evaluation process.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / Flight Test instrumentation control units have traditionally been low-technology units with mechanical switches, readouts, and perhaps an RS232 interface. As the complexity of Flight Test Instrumentation systems and operational requirements increase, and as cockpit space becomes scarce, these control units are no longer sufficient. These control units need to provide capabilities commensurate with the complexity of the instrumentation systems they control. This paper describes an instrumentation control system that uses a Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) Flight Test Instrumentation designed Instrumentation Control Unit (ICU). The ICU communicates with the avionics system to allow pilot control via existing aircraft displays. By taking advantage of a relatively simple protocol to interface with the avionics system, the substantial cost of reprogramming the avionics software is avoided, and software control is shifted to the Flight Test group, thus allowing a tremendous increase in system flexibility at reasonable cost. Functions of the unit can be changed relatively quickly and inexpensively. This promises a wide range of future applications, such as in-flight monitoring of flight-critical instrumentation parameters by the pilot, control of the instrumentation system via uplink (with pilot override), and real-time in-flight selection of telemetered data streams and parameters. This paper describes the baseline instrumentation control system and requirements to be used on the EA-18G Flight Test Program, plus additional future capabilities.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The technologies used for flight test are evolving. Trusted standards like CAIS and IRIG106 PCM are giving way to new “trusted standards” (and proven technologies/protocols) found in telecommunication and networking such as Ethernet, fiber channel, TCP/IP, UDP, ATM and so on. Currently there is $100Ms+ invested in CAIS and IRIG compliant equipment in the world. A key challenge in this evolution is to provide a reliable solution that allows the FTI engineer to immediately take advantage of these advanced technologies while protecting prior investment in equipment, knowledge, and resources during this transition. This paper presents an analysis of how to protect existing assets while still leveraging the power of the latest technologies. It looks at the characteristics of a “bridge” system, and suggests solutions for merging and linking data from and to different transmission protocols using data synchronization and deterministic data management cycles.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The deployment of network-based airborne instrumentation systems is leading to cost-efficient replacement of legacy instrumentation systems. One application of airborne data acquisition that has been developed and maintained separately from traditional avionics and orange-wire data acquisition systems is high-speed camera packages. The development of network-based instrumentation systems has led to an opportunity to unify these two previously distinct airborne data acquisition activities. This paper describes the range-video network-based instrumentation system (rNET) being implemented by the 46th Test Wing, 846th Test Support Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, FL to replace the existing Airborne Separation Video System (ASVS).

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 / The F-35 program, known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is the largest DOD program ever awarded. There are three F-35 variations, each intended to meet the specific needs of the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Allies. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter represents the newest advanced military aircraft to make use of Fibre Channel as its primary avionics information transport network. In addition to its use for carrying tactical information systems data, the Fibre Channel network will also transport the real-time digital video used in the cockpit; primarily the pilot's helmet mounted display (HMD) and the high-resolution configurable panoramic cockpit display (PCD). In addition to the fighter's instrumentation configuration for orange wire and avionics data, the aircraft will carry a separate instrumentation package to allow for both the recording and telemetry of either high-resolution Fibre Channel digital video or standard resolution analog video inputs during flight tests. This multiplexer is designed to record cockpit video and audio data, while supporting an option for the test engineer to select up to three out of eight video and audio inputs for real-time telemetry to the ground. This paper describes the architecture of this system, along with the techniques used to reduce the 5 MBps Fibre Channel digital video to a bandwidth acceptable for telemetry.

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 / This paper presents the Flight Test Instrumentation Manager Software application internally developed and used inside the Eurocopter Flight Test department. This fully integrated and user friendly tool covers the all management requirement for entire life cycle of the flight test instrumentation equipment and configuration, tracking all the main events: order, calibration, configuration, service and repair, final disposal. FTIManager serves as a central hub between the instrumentation team and the post processing and analysis teams.

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 / In this paper, we discuss the benefits of maintaining a neutral-format hardware specification along with the telemetry metadata specification. We present several reasons and methods for maintaining the hardware specifications, as well as several potential uses of hardware specification. These uses include cross-validation with the telemetry metadata and automatic generation of both metadata and instrumentation networks.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is developing a new launch vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle. The Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) will be a combination of new design hardware and heritage Apollo and Space Shuttle hardware. The current CLV configuration is a 5 segment solid rocket booster First Stage and a new Upper Stage design with a modified Apollo era J-2 engine. The current schedule has an Ascent Development Test Flight (ADFT-0) with a First Stage and a dummy structurally identical, but without engine, Upper Stage. The ADFT-0 test results will determine if there will be multiple ADFT flights. There will be a minimum of two test flights with a full complement of flight hardware. After the completion of the test flights, the first manned flight to the International Space Station is scheduled for late 2014. To verify the CLV’s design margins a developmental flight instrumentation (DFI) system is needed. The DFI system will collect environmental and health data from the various CLV subsystems’ and either transmit it to the ground or store it onboard for later evaluation on the ground. The CLV consists of 4 major elements: the First Stage, the Upper Stage, the Upper Stage Engine and the integration of these elements together. It is anticipated that each of CLV’s elements will have some version of DFI. This paper will discuss a conceptual DFI design for each element and also of an integrated CLV DFI system.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / We need to begin to define what the future of point-to-point telemetry will be in the new world of wireless communications, increasing bandwidth requirements, the integration of test and training, and modeling and simulation (M&S) interacting with open air ranges. The Advanced Range Telemetry Program will introduce several new technologies to the telemetry community over the next several years, how will we use and build on them for the future? What kind of architecture will we need to be able to interact with the M&S and Training communities? How do we create that architecture and to what use would it be put by a test program? The answer, we believe, is to build the equivalent of a network in the sky. An extension of the Internet, in simplistic terms. The system under test (SUT), or the systems in training would become nodes of a large interactive network. Instead of the SUT being treated as something outside the sphere of control for the range, the SUTs onboard instrumentation systems would become an integral part of the greater range complex. This paper will address what the architecture of a real-time telemetry network might look like and how it could be implemented within the telemetry community.

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.