PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGY OFFERS UNREALIZED FLEXIBILITY IN TOMORROW’S TELEMETRY GROUND STATIONS

Abstract

Today’s state of the art in semiconductor technology coupled with innovative computer architecture techniques can provide tomorrow’s telemetry industry with advanced ground station capabilities. Computer systems have traditionally been used to process all of the telemetry data. As data transmission speeds increase, the computer system can no longer handle real time processing so preprocessors are being used to handle the additional computational requirements. An alternative approach is to embed special purpose processors into applicable elements of the front-end equipment. These processors can be optimized for the function they are to perform, which prevents under utilization of processing power and enhances the flexibility and performance of the front-end element. These special purpose processors take up little real estate when implemented with todays LSI and VLSI semiconductors. The modules which are ideally suited for this type of technology are serial data correlators, decommutators, real time data correction, engineering units conversion, quick look display, data simulation and many special application modules. These processing elements provide the building blocks for a very powerful, cost effective family of modular telemetry and communications products for the 80’s and beyond.