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 / Sponsored by the Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program (CTEIP), the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project has created a proposed architecture for network enhancing aeronautical telemetry. Given the static nature of the current aeronautical telemetry architecture (it has not significantly changed in over 50 years), it is recognized that iNET must be carefully deployed to avoid test disruptions and safety issues. In support of a smooth transition to this new architecture, the Naval Air Warfare Division Aircraft (NAWCAD) conducted an extensive continuous process improvement project. This paper will describe the process, defined and launched by this study, to assure the safe deployment of iNET.

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 use of Ethernet and Internet Protocol (IP) networking technologies in flight test instrumentation and telemetry systems is rapidly increasing, driven by the ubiquity, scalability, and flexibility of networking technologies. Networks first made a positive impact in ground station infrastructure and have recently been emerging in test article data acquisition infrastructure in programs such as the A380, 787, P-8A, and Future Combat Systems. The next logical step is to provide a two-way network telemetry link to fully extend the flexibility of the network between the test articles and ground station. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) integrated Network-Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) program is currently working to build a standardized network telemetry link for exactly this purpose. When developing a network telemetry link, the limited availability of telemetry spectrum must be considered and thus it is critical to choose system-level approaches to maximize the throughput achieved from the link. This paper first presents the statistics of the network data that would typically use this link based on empirical data from current network-based flight test instrumentation systems. Several approaches to using a network telemetry link are then presented. Predicted achievable throughputs of each approach are presented that are derived from the statistics of the empirical test data. Based on this, the paper presents recommendations for building systems using network telemetry links.

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 / Emerging and next-generation test instrumentation increasingly relies on network communication to manage complex and dynamic test scenarios, particularly for uninhabited autonomous systems. Adapting wireless communication infrastructure to accommodate challenging testing needs can benefit from reconfigurable radio technology. Frequency agility is one characteristic of reconfigurable radios that to date has seen only limited progress toward programmability. This paper overviews an ongoing project to validate a promising chipset that performs conversion of RF signals directly into digital data for the wireless receiver and, for the transmitter, converts digital data into RF signals. The Software Configurable Multichannel Transceiver (SCMT) enables four transmitters and four receivers in a single unit, programmable for any frequency band between 1 MHz and 6 GHz.

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 support of iNET maturation, NASA-JPL has collaborated with NASA-Dryden to develop, test and demonstrate an over-the-horizon vehicle-to-ground networking capability, using Iridium as the vehicle-to-ground communications link for relaying critical vehicle telemetry. To ensure reliability concerns are met, the Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS) transport protocol was investigated for its performance characteristics in this environment. In particular, the SCPS-TP software performance was compared to that of the standard Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) over the Internet Protocol (IP). This paper will report on the results of this work.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / There is a continuing need in the aerospace industry for lower cost and more maintainable telemetry data processing systems that can deliver a high level of performance. While systems based on the Intel family of x86 processors and Microsoft operating systems have seen increasing use in lower performance and portable applications, UNIX/VME based systems have been necessary to achieve required performance in higher end, multi-stream applications. Recent developments in the computer industry now promise lower cost alternative to these systems. With currently available technology, it is now possible to provide a powerful distributed processor architecture based entirely on commercial products. The system takes advantage of the latest of Intel Pentium processors, the PCI bus, 100BaseT Fast Ethernet, Microsoft Windows NT, ActiveX technology and NT servers. The architecture offers both current and future cost advantages for test facilities which must support a diverse set of requirements and which must maintain and support systems for many years.

ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Spectrum Efficient Technology Science and Technology (SET S&T) Program is sponsoring the development of the Dynamic Commutation and Decommutation System (DCDS), which optimizes telemetry data transmission in real time. The goal of DCDS is to improve spectrum efficiency - not through improving RF techniques but rather through changing and optimizing contents of the telemetry stream during system test. By allowing the addition of new parameters to the telemetered stream at any point during system test, DCDS removes the need to transmit measured data unless it is actually needed on the ground. When compared to serial streaming telemetry, real time re-formatting of the telemetry stream does require additional processing onboard the test article. DCDS leverages advances in microprocessor technology to perform this processing while meeting size, weight, and power constraints of the test environment. Performance gains of the system have been achieved by significant multi-threading of the application, allowing it to run on modern multi-core processors. Two other enhancing technologies incorporated into DCDS are the Java programming language and lossless compression.

5G is an enabler to several new use cases. To support all of them, the network infrastructure must be flexible and it should adapt to the different situations. This feature is powered by SDN, NFV, and Automation, three of the main pillars on which the 5G network is built.Traditional network management approaches may not be suitable for the 5G Core Network User Plane, which holds strict requirements in terms of latency and throughput. Therefore, Artificial Intelligence agents have been proposed to manage the 5G in a more efficient manner, delivering a more optimized allocation of the resources. This approach requires real-time monitoring of the data passing by the Core Network, a feature not standardized by the current protocols. In this thesis, the design of a monitoring protocol for the 5G Core Network User Plane has been studied, focusing on precise measurement of latencies. Then, a In-band Network Telemetry (INT) framework has been implemented on top of a User Plane Function prototype. The prototype is built on top of a novel User Plane implementation, based on chaining of atomic functions called micro-UPFs (µUPFs).While the main focus of this work has been latency measurement, packet counters, byte counters and Inter Packet Gap values can be collected from the framework, proving the main KPIs of a 5G User Plane. The INT framework has been implemented through two new µUPFs, one for updating the INT metadata and one for collecting them. These metadata are attached to the user packets as GTP-U extended header, maintaining compatibility with the standard protocol. Moreover, the implemented framework allows high flexibility through dynamic tuning of the parameters, providing mechanisms to reduce the amount of telemetry data generated and, thus, the system overhead.The framework has been tested on a physical setup of four server machines, abstracting a Core Network User Plane, connected with 10 Gbps NICs. In all the tests performed, the performances of the User Plane are affected by the new functionalities only when INT metadata are inserted very frequently. The results show that is possible to monitor the three main KPIs of a 5G User Plane without heavily limiting the system performances. / 5G är en möjliggörare för flera nya användningsfall: för att stödja dem alla måste nätverksinfrastrukturen vara flexibel och den ska anpassa sig till de olika situationerna. Denna funktion drivs av SDN, NFV och Automation, tre av de viktigaste pelarna som 5G-nätverket är byggt på.Traditionella nätverkshanteringsstrategier kanske inte passar för 5G Core Network, som har strikta krav när det gäller latens och genomströmning. Därför har Artificial Intelligence-agenter föreslagits att hantera 5G på ett mer effektivt sätt, vilket ger en mer optimerad fördelning av resurserna. Detta tillvägagångssätt kräver realtidsövervakning av data som passerar via Core Network, en funktion som inte standardiseras med de aktuella protokollen.I denna avhandling har utformningen av ett övervakningsprotokoll för 5G Core Network User Plane studerats med fokus på exakt mätning av latenser. Sedan har ett in-band Network Telemetry (INT) -ramverk implementerats ovanpå en prototyp för User Plane Function. Denna prototyp utnyttjade Chain Controllerarkitekturen, en ny användarplan-implementering baserad på kedjan av atomfunktioner som kallas µUPF.Medan huvudfokuset för detta arbete har varit latensmätning, kan paketräknare, byttäknare och Inter Packet Gap-värden samlas in från ramverket, vilket bevisar de viktigaste KPI: erna i ett 5G-nätverk. INT-ramverket har implementerats genom två nya µUPF, en för att uppdatera INT-metadata och en för att samla dem. Dessa metadata är anslutna till användarpaketen som GTP-U utökad rubrik, bibehållande kompatibilitet med standardprotokollet. Dessutom tillåter det implementerade ramverket hög flexibilitet som tillåter dynamisk inställning av parametrarna, tillhandahåller mekanismer för att minska mängden telemetri-data som genereras och därmed systemomkostnaderna.Ramverket har testats på en fysisk installation av fyra servermaskiner som abstraherar ett Core Network User Plane, anslutet med 10 Gbps NIC. I samtliga tester påverkas testbäddens prestationer av de nya funktionerna först när INT-metadata sätts in mycket ofta. Resultaten visar att det är möjligt att övervaka de tre huvudsakliga KPI: erna i ett 5G-nätverk utan att starkt begränsa systemprestanda.

As computer networks grow more complex as the number of connected devices increases, the monitoring and management of such networks also increases in complexity. Current network monitoring tools such as NetFlow, sFlow, ping, traceroute, and tcpdump prove to be both tedious and offer low accuracy when reporting the network state. With the recent emergence in programmable data plane switches, a new framework was created by the P4 Applications Working Group named In- Band Network Telemetry (INT). INT enables network programmers to obtain fine- grained telemetry information directly from the data plane without involvement from the control plane. This project implements INT in hardware Intel Tofino switches and provides a comparison between the three different INT modes of operations (INTXD, INTMX and INTMD) as defined in the framework specifications. The results show the effects of INT when implemented in the data plane, providing the ability to monitor the path a packet took through the network (switch ingress and egress ports), the hop latency, queue occupancy and queuing latency. However, INT can increase the overhead in both the packet and the bandwidth of the network, reducing application throughput. Measures to counteract this are discussed. An earlier implementation of a standalone telemetry report monitoring system was used and analysed, and it allowed for telemetry reports to be reported and visualised at a rate of up to 50 Kpps without any event detection. The results are applied to a Saab 9LV CMS network, and it is concluded that INT allows network operators to obtain a precise overview of the network state, allowing for easier network troubleshooting. / När datornätverk växer sig i komplexitet när antalet anslutna enheter ökar, metoder för övervakningen och hanteringen av sådana nätverk ökar också i komplexitet. Nuvarande nätverksövervakningsverktyg som NetFlow, sFlow, ping, traceroute och tcpdump visar sig vara både besvärliga och ger låg noggrannhet när man rapporterar nätverkstillståndet. Med den framväxten av programmerbara dataplan och programmerbara switchar skapades ett nytt ramverk av P4 Applications Working Group som heter INT. INT gör det möjligt för nätverksprogrammerare att erhålla finkornig telemetriinformation direkt från dataplanet utan inblandning från kontrollplanet. Detta projekt implementerar INT i Intel Tofino- switchar och ger en jämförelse mellan de tre olika INT- driftsätten (INTXD, INTMX och INTMD) enligt definitionen i specifikationerna. Resultaten visar effekterna av INT när det implementeras i dataplanet, inklusive möjligheten att övervaka vägen som ett paket tog genom nätverket (både ingångs- och utgångsportar på switcharna), hop- latens, köbeläggning och kö- latens. Dock kan INT öka overhead i både paketet och bandbredden i nätverket, vilket minskar applikationsgenomströmningen. Åtgärder för att motverka detta diskuteras. En tidigare implementering av ett fristående övervakningssystem för telemetrirapporter användes och analyserades, och det var möjligt att rapportera och visualisera telemetirapporter med en hastighet på upp till 50 Kpps utan någon händelsedetektering. Resultaten tillämpas på ett Saab 9LV CMS- nätverk och man drar slutsatsen att INT tillåter nätoperatörer att få en noggrann översikt över nätverkstillståndet, vilket möjliggör enklare nätverksfelsökning.