MULTIPROCESSOR-BASED DATA ACQUISITION AND ANALYSIS

Abstract

Multiprocessing computer systems offer several attractive advantages for telemetry-related data acquisition and processing applications. These include: (1) high-bandwidth, fail-soft operation with convenient, low-cost, growth paths, (2) cost-effective integration and clustering of data acquisition, decommutation, monitoring, archiving, analysis, and display processing, and (3) support for modern telemetry system architectures that allow concurrent network access to test data (for both real-time and post-test analyses) by multiple analysts. This paper asserts that today’s general-purpose hardware and software offer viable platforms for these applications. One such system, currently under development, closely couples VME data buses and other off-the-shelf components, parallel processing computers, and commercial data analysis packages to acquire, process, display, and analyze telemetry and other data from a major weapon system. This approach blurs the formerly clear architectural distinction in telemetry data processing systems between special-purpose, front-end, preprocessing hardware and generalpurpose, back-end, host computers used for further processing and display.