AN APPROACH FOR BER DETERMINATION USING LOGGED AERONAUTICAL TELEMETRY DATA

Abstract

BER is regarded as the link-performance metric in a digital communication system. It is a function of Eb/N0 and is dependent on the modulation scheme used. This relation is often used in prediction of ground telemetry systems performance for a mission configuration. However, there is no objective way of comparing the post flight results, as BER measurement in a flight test is not practically feasible for want of transmitting sufficient reference bit patterns. In this paper, an indirect way of computing BER and, in turn, link Eb/N0 is proposed for a PCM/FM link based on the frame synchronised data logged by the ground telemetry equipment. Using known quantities like bit rate and frame rate, a quantity defined as frame loss rate is computed. Applying the relations between frame loss probability, frame sync pattern and SFID information in the PCM format, an approach for bit error probability is demonstrated based on field data. By using a sliding window over a fixed length of data, BER for the entire flight duration can be determined as a function of flight time with the step size of the length of data window.