THE RAH-66 COMANCHE NETWORKED BASED DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM

Abstract

Serial interfaces (RS232, RS422/485) have been the standard method of communications in traditional data acquisition systems. The role of these interfaces has been to supply a simple setup and control path between a host and the data acquisition master and little else. Today’s distributed data acquisition systems (DAS), which are comprised of many types of components including Ground Support Computers (GSC), Pilot Control Units (PCU), Data System Control Units (DSCU), Solid State Recorders (SSR), Data Acquisition Units (DAU) and Cockpit Instrumentation Data Systems (CIDS), are ideally suited to the use of Ethernet for not only setup functions, but for the distribution of acquired data and status to an unlimited number of users. Besides the obvious advantage of higher data rates, Ethernet provides other benefits such as greater data integrity, multi-host capability, and common programming interfaces. This paper details the integration of new L3 Communications - Telemetry East (L3-TE) Ethernet based software and hardware components that are part of the Comanche Data Systems equipment suite.