USING THE STD BUS FOR ENCODER/DECODER SYSTEMS ABOARD A HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON PLATFORM

Abstract

The Physical Science Laboratory (PSL) is developing a balloon-launched platform that will support a wide range of high-altitude projects. The Stabilized High Altitude Research Platform (SHARP) will house several on-board microprocessor-based subsystems to provide telemetry, command, and navigation data. Support for a wide variety of scientific experiments requires versatile electronic subsystems aboard the platform. Using the STD bus as a building block component, the Laboratory has designed and fabricated such subsystems. The STD bus, a standard interface throughout the computer industry, was chosen for the design because of its availability, ruggedness, versatility, and wide selection of compatible, off-the-shelf components.