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 / The integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project established a test article standards working group to define open standards for network components and interfaces for test articles in the aeronautical test environment. Its aim is to utilize the growth of Internet technologies for telemetry networks and ensure interoperability among network devices. This paper describes the technology background and the current technology trades of an IP-based network paradigm used in producing standards for test article networks. Specifically, the paper will include descriptions of selected network technologies as applied to test data and time distribution within test articles.

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 / Unlike communications protocols that are bus-based or multi-drop (e.g., CAIS Bus, Fibre Channel, RS-485), Ethernet relies on a point-to-point connection topology. One reason for this approach is to allow network nodes to negotiate their individual mode of communication with the network, i.e., link speed and duplexity. The goals of this paper are twofold. The first goal is to describe the process of link negotiation between nodes. This will include some of the details of how two physical layer devices establish communication. The second goal is to show how networked data acquisition nodes are physically connected within the overall system.

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 / Industrial wireless sensor networks can be designed to meet the strict requirements of specific distributed applications. Emerging standards have enabled the development of low-cost, lowpower sensor nodes that are quickly becoming a commodity, enabling the realization of efficient and reliable data acquisition and telemetry in many systems. Moreover, new and exciting possibilities arise from the distributed computing power of the sensor nodes, the ability to monitor and aggregate data across large arrays of sensors, and the ability to model dynamic and rugged environments that were previously beyond the reach of traditional data acquisition and telemetry systems.

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 / Some of the first applications of network-based data acquisition systems have been for large aircraft. These systems contained numerous network nodes including data acquisition units, switches, recorders, network management units, and others. One of the desirable aspects of a networked-based system is the ability to scale such a system to meet increasing test requirements. Similarly, these systems lend themselves to scaling down, as well, to meet the testing needs of smaller test articles. These needs may include fewer nodes and/or physically smaller components. The testing of smaller vehicles places slightly different requirements on the testing process. In general, there is a greater need for real-time analysis, flexibility and ad-hoc testing. This paper will attempt to show how a small to medium sized test article can benefit from the same powerful, feature-rich network-based data acquisition and recording system as used on larger programs. The paper will also show how a smaller system can deliver on this promise without sacrificing performance and functionality.

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 / The development of network-based data acquisition systems has resulted in a new architecture for supporting flight instrumentation that has the potential to revolutionize the way we test our aircraft. Unlike conventional flight test instrumentation, networks provide for a two-way communication path between all elements of the system, utilize packetized data, support communication protocols, have dynamic quality of service levels, can be subject to loss of data, utilize asynchronous transmission behavior and provide an even higher level of time synchronization. Different flight test architectures can be realized which combine each of the previous attributes in different ways; finding the best architecture for a set of given applications while minimizing cost and complexity is a very difficult problem. For the last 3 years, the Network Products Division at Teletronics has been involved in the design and evaluation of aircraft instrumentation networks for both customers and the iNET program. This paper describes the result of these efforts by discussing the high-level design of a modular architecture for an aircraft instrumentation network.

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 / The F-22 flight test program used a traditional distributed data acquisition system and a non IRIG-106 Chapter 10 recording system for its flight test program. In addition, it required a separate and very large Harris DAU system to monitor and record avionic data buses carrying secure data. Due to the size, cost, and the obsolescence of the Harris DAU system and components, Lockheed evaluated replacement systems. TTC proposed to develop F-22 specific Fiber Optic avionics bus monitors and an avionics PCM Data Selector / Encoder as part of its distributed IRIG-106 Chapter 10 Multiplexer / Recorder system to replace the Harris DAU. This replacement system challenges the traditional system approach used in many flight test programs. This paper describes the evolutionary process to design two independent distributed data acquisition and recording systems handling data with different classification levels. The data separation is maintained by way of system wiring, proper hardware that holds no residual data once power is removed, different transmission channels, hardware-based message blocking, and a separate IRIG-106 Chapter 10 multiplexing / recording system.

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 / Ubiquitous internet protocol (IP) hardware has reached performance and capability levels that allow its use in data collection and real-time processing applications. Recent development experience with IP-based airborne data acquisition systems has shown that the open, pre-existing IP tools, standards, and capabilities support this form of distribution and sharing of data quite nicely, especially when combined with IP multicast. Unfortunately, the packet based nature of our approach also posed some problems that required special handling to achieve performance requirements. We have developed methods and algorithms for the filtering, selecting, and retiming problems associated with packet-based systems and present our approach in this paper.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / We analyze several telemetry data acquisition systems to gage the system impact of denser custom ICs being developed under the HSTSS-DAC project. Our baseline is a telemetry system recently developed at Eglin AFB to support 16 analog input channels, signal conditioning and encoding for Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) using Commercial Off-the- Shelf (COTS) ICs. The data acquisition portion of the system occupies three double-sided, round circuit cards, each 2.3" in diameter. A comparable system using HSTSS-DAC custom Ics will occupy only one side of one card - a factor of six-volume reduction compared to the COTS approach.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / Researchers at the National Wind Technology Center have identified a need to acquire data on the rotor of an operating wind turbine at precisely the same time as other data is acquired on the ground or a non-rotating part of the wind turbine. The researchers will analyze that combined data with statistical and correlation techniques to clearly establish phase information and loading paths and insights into the structural loading of wind turbines. A data acquisition unit has been developed to acquire the data from the rotating system at precise universal times specified by the user. The unit utilizes commercial data acquisition hardware, spread-spectrum radio modems, and a Global Positioning System receiver; and a custom-built programmable logic device. A prototype of the system is now operational, and initial field deployment is anticipated this summer.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) data systems are used extensively in testing aircraft all over the world. These systems can be tailored to almost any set of measurement requirements using flexible, modular equipment available from several sources. This paper describes a system assembled from readily available components manufactured in the United States that is being used to certify a Russian aircraft flying in The Commonwealth of Independent States. The system features distributed data acquisition, programmable signal conditioning and PCM encoding modules, multi-channel temperature and pressure scanners and real time data displays on board the aircraft. The impact of U.S. export controls and our experience to date is also discussed.