BIT RATE AGILITY FOR EFFICIENT TELEMETRY

Abstract

The Bit Rate Agile Onboard Telemetry Formatting (BRAOTF) system was developed by Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing to address increasing demands on the efficiency of telemetry systems. The BRAOTF thins and reorders data streams, adjusting the bit rate of a pulse code modulation (PCM) stream using a bit-locked loop to match the desired information rate exactly. The BRAOTF accomplishes the adjustment in hardware, synthesizing a clock whose operating frequency is derived from the actual timing of the input format. Its firmware manages initialization and error management. Testing has confirmed that the BRAOTF implementation meets its design goals.