AN IMPLEMENTATION OF DYNAMIC DATA ACQUISITION MEASUREMENTS

Abstract

As data acquisition systems evolve and begin utilizing new avenues of acquisition such as Ethernet, an entirely new range of flight test capabilities become available. These new capabilities, defined by acquisition, monitoring, and varying of test measurements, enhance previous operation as they can now be realized during flight. Achieving such high levels of integration between ground station and test vehicle involves complex network protocols. Implementing such systems from scratch would be a time consuming and costly proposition. Fortunately, employing Internet protocols (TCP/IP) over Ethernet provides a cornucopia of readily available technology. Using state-of-the-art integration techniques, modern data acquisition systems can leverage years of proven technology offered by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This paper discusses an implementation of dynamic data acquisition measurements for use in network data acquisition systems. The methodology used to determine whether or not a measurement can and should be variable during a flight test is examined in detail along with a discussion of the advantages of dynamically varying flight test measurements. Finally, an implementation is presented which successfully integrates Internet protocols with modern flight test equipment using the techniques described above for dynamic data acquisition measurements.