Design Considerations for Networked Data Acquisition Systems

Abstract

Ethernet technology offers numerous benefits for networked Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) systems such as increased data rates, flexibility, scalability and most importantly interoperability owing to the inherent interface, protocol and technological standardization. However, the best effort nature of Ethernet is in sharp contrast to the intrinsic determinism of tradition FTI systems. The challenge for network designers is to optimize the configuration of the Ethernet network to meet the data processing demands in terms of reliability and latency. This paper discusses the necessary planning and design phases to investigate, analyze, fine-tune and optimize the networks performance.