TECHNIQUES FOR ACQUIRING DIGITAL DATA FROM INTELLIGENT SUBSYSTEMS

Abstract

There is an ever-increasing need for intelligent sub-systems onboard airborne and ground vehicles. With this intelligence comes asynchronous bus communications under the control of various industry standards and specifications. As a result, two telecommunications needs have developed; from a telemetering viewpoint, that of acquiring data from the various intelligent sources and time-division multiplexing that data with classic analog instrumentation, and, from an intravehicle communications viewpoint, that of providing a means for transfer of information between two dissimilar sub-systems. A systematic breakdown of the necessary elements to link, synchronize, sort, interpret, store, merge and control such data is examined. Proven approaches to handling data from both standard (ARINC, MIL-STD-1553, IEEE-488, etc.) and specialized subsystems is overviewed from an instrumentation perspective.