INTEGRATED REALTIME SOFTWARE FOR BOTH AIRBORNE FLIGHT TEST SYSTEMS AND PCM GROUND STATIONS

Abstract

Flight test activities can be completed quicker if the test engineers can evaluate test data in realtime on-board the aircraft or at the PCM ground station. Teledyne Controls is developing a software package for several customers that provides realtime EU data in several formats. Data presented to the test engineer includes: stacked or overlayed scrolling EU curves, limit exceedance tests and alarm generation, tabular EU data presentations and operator requested hardcopy of CRT presentations supplemented by the classical raw data strip chart recordings. Incorporated into this software are facilities permitting semi-automatic calibration of sensors installed in the aircraft during preflight operations as well as generation of tape headers for automatic PCM tape reading by the ground station. Other features include semi-automatic processing of sensor calibration data gathered in the calibration laboratory for entry into the ground station’s data base, and a software/hardware link coupling the data reduction software in the PCM ground station to the generation, loading and test of the data cycle map in the airborne PCM system.