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 direction of future data acquisition systems is rapidly moving toward a network-based architecture. There is a handful of these network-based flight test systems already operating, and the current trend is catching on all over the flight test community. As vendors are churning out a whole new product line for networking capabilities, system engineers are left asking, "What do I do with all of this non-networked, legacy equipment?" Before overhauling an entire test system, one should look for a way to incorporate the legacy system components into the modern network architecture. Finding a way to integrate the two generations of systems can provide substantial savings in both cost and application development time. This paper discusses the advantages of integrating legacy equipment into a network-based architecture with examples from systems where this approach was utilized.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / Network-based telemetry systems have unprecedented amounts of flexibility due to the ability to monitor, control, configure, coordinate, and visualize the operations of the flight test system. As a result of this flexibility, multiple tests can be conducted in a single flight; all it takes is reconfiguration of portions of the system. However, management of such a dynamic system is a complex task. As such, the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) Program is currently developing a System Manager application to provide a model for coordinated management of networked telemetry. The System Manager provides a user application for monitoring, controlling, configuring, coordinating, and visualizing the operations of the Telemetry Network System (TmNS) network. This paper describes the key requirements, capabilities, and development approach of the System Manager.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / One of the core philosophies of the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project is to leverage standard networking technologies whenever possible to reduce development cost and to allow standard networking applications to function. This also provides the best long-term scalability to new unforeseen applications much as the Internet has grown through its open standards. The Developmental Flight Test phase is currently under way to perform initial flight testing of the Test Article (TA) Network. This paper provides an overview of the planned TA Network Testing and the expected results. Current results from flight testing will be presented at the conference.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / One of the core philosophies of the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project is to leverage standard networking technologies whenever possible to both reduce development cost and to allow standard networking applications to function properly. This also provides the best long-term scalability to new unforeseen applications much as the Internet has grown through its open standards. Unfortunately, the Radio Frequency (RF) channel characteristics do not fully lend themselves to the typical physical layer approaches utilized by Internet Protocol (IP) technologies. The iNET project is developing the Telemetry Network System (TmNS) RF Network to provide a flexible two-way IP telemetry capability. The Developmental Flight Test (DFT) phase is currently under way to perform initial flight testing of the RF Network. This paper provides an overview of the planned RF network testing and the expected results. Current results from flight testing will be presented at the conference.

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 / In a quest to provide networked communication to test assets at all of the Major Range and Test Facility Bases (MRTFB), the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) Program was formed. A study was accomplished outlining five environments that encompass the work of these MRTFBs. The first of these environments to be advanced towards networked communication is the Aeronautical Environment. In order to develop these technologies, a test platform is proposed, realized, and tested. This airborne test platform will be used for concept and product testing and validation of the three portions of the Telemetry Network System (TmNS); the vehicle network, vNET, the radio frequency network (RF), rfNET, and the interface to the ground network, gNET. This paper will present the baseline system configuration, describe its operation, and detail RF link testing results.

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 / A previous paper was presented detailing the design and testing of the first networked demonstration system (ITC 2006) for iNET. This paper extends that work by testing a commercial off the shelf (COTS) solution for the wireless network connection of the Telemetry Network System (TmNS). This paper will briefly discuss specific pieces of the airborne and ground station system but will concentrate on the new wireless network link, how it was tested, and how well it performed. Flight testing results will be presented accessing the performance of the wireless network link.

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 / At the 2007 iNet Technology Demonstrator multiple vendors are asked to participate to develop and evaluate protocols for time synchronization, configuration identification and heterogeneous data packet transfer. The iNet initiative from RCC is aimed at focusing and collating telemetry network developments within the wider sphere of commercial and military network developments. The KAM-500 is an inherently networked data-acquisition system offering seamless gateways to many heterogeneous data sources, such as different sensor devices, avionics-busses, networks and video sources. This paper offers insights into the impact of traffic and network configuration on the performance of heterogeneous data acquisition in a homogenous-switched network based a 1588 enabled controller module.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / This is the story of three projects, which use three different research funding sources, coming together to demonstrate a small, but complete, instrumentation system that advances several technologies. The Onboard Smart Sensor (OSS) project is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project that incorporates IEEE 1451.4 sensors into an existing Common Airborne Instrumentation System (CAIS) based instrumentation system. These sensors are "smart" in that they can self-identify basic information via a Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS). The Enhanced Query Data Recorder (EQDR) is being developed under the T&E Science & Technology Spectrum Efficient Technology (S&T SET) portfolio. This recorder is based on the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) specifications. One of the objectives of iNET is to be able to query a recorder in real-time and transfer the request across a network telemetry link. The third project provides Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) backfill to compensate for dropouts. One of the envisioned applications enabled by the iNET architecture is the ability to provide PCM displays in the control room that do not have dropouts. This is called PCM Backfill. The basic scenario is that PCM is both transmitted (as it traditionally has been via serial streaming telemetry (SST)) and recorded onboard. When dropouts occur, a request over the telemetry network is made to the recorder (the EQDR in this case) and the dropped portions of the PCM stream are sent over the telemetry network to backfill the ground display. By adding a PCM-to- Ethernet/iNET bridge, the OSS and legacy instrumentation system can provide data to both the standard PCM and to the EQDR. Combined, this mini-system demonstrates a vision of having intelligence and networking ability across the entire instrumentation system – from sensor to display.

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 Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program (CTEIP) Integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) program is currently testing a wireless local area networking (WLAN) in an L-band telemetry (TM) channel to evaluate the feasibility and capabilities of enhancing traditional TM methods in a seamless wide area network (WAN). Several advantages of networking are real-time command and control of instrumentation formats, quick-look acquisition, data retransmission and recovery (gapless TM) and test point real-time verification. These networking functions, and all others, need to be tested and evaluated. The iNET team is developing a WLAN based on 802.x technologies to test the feasibility of the enhanced telemetry implementation for flight testing.

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