Portable Airborne Digital Data System Recorder

Abstract

Veda Incorporated has developed an airborne instrumentation recorder for a major commercial aircraft manufacturer. The recorder was developed for use in the aircraft company's Portable Airborne Digital Data System (PADDS), a small scale data acquisition and monitor system used for flight testing. The recorder is designed around an off-the-shelf 8mm tape drive, the Exabyte 8505. It records asynchronous, variable-rate data in a proprietary 24-bit recording format, and allows the data to be played back in real time. Its RS-422 control interface is designed to imitate the recorder used in the company's large scale data acquisition system, the Ampex DCRSi-II. Special provisions allow it to withstand the environment of an airplane's EE bay.