THE ROLE OF THE PC IN GROUND TELEMETRY DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

The growth of personal computer use was explosive in the last decade. In the telemetry industry, however, the adaptation and utilization of a PC-based telemetry instrument for high-speed data processing and display did not come about until the Intel 80386™ or equivalent processors were widely used in the late 1980s. At this time, the power of these processors finally began to meet the requirement to display, store, and play back the high-speed data (such as 10 Mbps with an embedded asynchronous data stream) that is typical in telemetry applications. Many users are still hesitant to use PCS for their telemetry applications because of the real-time limitations of these instruments. This paper will examine the advantages and disadvantages of PC-based test equipment, the performance these instruments, and the future of PC-based telemetry instrumentation. This paper will also focus on Loral Instrumentation’s d*STAR as an example of a PC-based telemetry system.