A GENERIC OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN FOR A RADIO FREQUENCY SIMULATION IN A SPACE TELEMETRY AND COMMAND ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

In a generic telemetry simulation the overall fidelity of the simulation is largely based on the simulated vehicle’s On-Board-Systems (OBS) engineering models that drive the generation of the telemetry. Also, the actual transfer of data between the simulated vehicle and control center depends on the ability of the Radio Frequency (RF) OBS to acquire and process the RF links thus resulting in a Acquisition of Signal or Loss of Signal (AOS/LOS) determination. The simulated RF links are a function of the communications OBS models, and the communications environment models. The communications OBS models are responsible for propagating the RF signal. Since the RF link analysis is highly integrated into the characteristics of the communications equipment and environment models, RF link software needs to be constantly redeveloped as communications equipment models change, fidelity is added, or multiple links are created. However, by using a generic objectoriented design, RF link software can process any number of differing links based on the RF characteristics of the propagated wave. As a result, the communications equipment model software can be changed to reflect possible design changes without having to rewrite the RF link software thus allowing reuse of existing code.