Development of Airborne Data Reduction System in IPTN Flight Test

Abstract

An airborne data reduction system using a personal computer has been introduced in IPTN Flight Test Facilities. The system is developed to enhance the Flight Test Capabilities in the remote area operation where telemetry link from the test aircraft to the base station can not be established. Hence, the immediate flight test data assesment can be performed on site. The system is given an acronym ARTISt that stands for Airborne Real Time Instrumentation System. The development plan of ARTISt consists of several phases in accordance with IPTN inhouse Flight Test Program. At this stage ARTISt is in a phase 1 or a preliminary stage where areas of improvement are still wide open. Experience during flight test execution will dictate the improvement which has to be done later on. ARTISt is designed to serve more rapid Flight Test Data assesment, therefore a compatibility with the existing flight test system in use is of prime concerned. In this early stage ARTISt can handle on-line flight test data, reduced and displayed it in agreeable form to the flight data specialyst and then print it. The display as well as the print out can be in the form of table, barchart, graphics, mixed of graphic and table. The engineer on board can select any of those forms, and an impression about the test flight situation being performed can be given. In the final phase ARTISt is projected to be able to perform the flight test preparation phase including the measuring parameters cheek-out, reduce and present the data in real-time, record all the information and prepare a flight test report, and finally facilitate a post flight check-out. It is expected that by employing ARTISt, the flight test data assesment and analysis can be performed as fast as in the old system or presumably faster.