Software Decommutation and Integration

Abstract

The Telemetry Data Center (TDC) at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), New Mexico recently targeted analog best source selectors for replacement along with their associated signal handling equipments. The commercial selectors available offered no better performance, so TDC engineers circulated a "White Paper" on real time correlation based compositing. Within two years a Correlating Source Selector (CSS) was fielded successfully. The CSS’s bridging feature unexpectedly opened the door to a ubiqituous software decommutator (decom) that has catalyzed a complete “make-over” of the entire TDC architecture. Hardware and software interaction in a decom is different with the CSS. While performing its correlation tasks the CSS is able to provide raw data over TCP/IP directly to the end application. The CSS places the data in computer friendly frame aligned form and the decommutation may be performed in software. The converse is similarly simple, a data file maybe transferred to the CSS for commutation into PCM. This white paper describes the morphing of software decommutation into a commodity, integrated into each end device, be it graphics display, Disk or Chart recorder. The result is an interesting consolidation that spawns a new functionally integrated Telemetry Data Center ( iTDC). This integrated Display Decom (iDD) concept has been demonstrated on Apple G5 RISC computers.