REAL TIME UNIX TELEMETRY SUPPORT SYSTEM

Abstract

Telemetry applications today are requiring more and more computing power. The computing industry is responding to this need with more powerful machines. With these new machines the UNIX operating system is rapidly being accepted as the system of choice for the popular lowend and midrange RISC and CISC computers. The system discussed addresses the long standing question, “Can a complete UNIX system perform in a high-data-rate real-time environment?”. This paper describes the Loral Data Systems development of a Real-Time Data Transcription System (RDTS) built for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and TRW. This system utilizes a powerful telemetry preprocessor, internally bus-coupled to a real time UNIX host computer. An industry-standard VME-to-VME coupling provides an efficient setup, control and computational gateway for preprocessed telemetry data. This architecture illustrates a UNIX operating system to support a pseudo-real-time telemetry application.