IRIG106-Chapter 7 in Practice – A Real Use Case

Abstract

Chapter 7 methodology was introduced in IRIG106 in 2015 with the purpose of simplifying the on-board architecture while still using legacy Chapter 4 hardware on ground. On top of that, this new protocol benefits from the growing use of the more and more popular Chapter 10/11 processing softwares. The various on-board data sources are acquired and embedded in a standard Chapter 4 PCM data stream. Then, all the telemetry downlink chain can be reused up to the data processing system in charge of reconstructing the original data streams and dispatching them to the end users. This is where complexity reaches its climax, depending on the use-cases. The goal of this paper it to present a real-case architecture of a flight test bed whose telemetry system has evolved to IRIG106-15 Chapter 7, and the challenges faced by the ground processing system. It gives insights of return of experience of deployment, performances, benefits and drawbacks of such a system, as well as leads for improvements.