An Asynchronous Digital Interface for SLAT Telemetry

Abstract

This paper describes telemetry used in the Supersonic Low Altitude Target (SLAT) built for the U.S. Navy by Martin Marietta. Feeding digital inputs directly to a pulse code modulation (PCM) encoder, bypassing the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, and injecting into the output PCM wavetrain is well known. Various techniques for accomplishing this have been reported; however, they all have time correlation and synchronization problems. The system to be described involves asynchronous data transfer from the digital computer to the PCM encoder. The system uses a dual-port random-access memory (RAM) to effectively decouple the computer output, which is running synchronously on its 6 MHz clock, from the PCM wavetrain, which is running at 128 kilobits per second. Data from the computer is being "written into" the RAM simultaneously while data is being "read out." Contention arbitration prevents loss of data when read and write ports of the same address are activated. A "forbidden code" provides a special code when the computer is not connected or is producing all zeros.