Computer Technology
Telemetry Technology
New low-cost telemetry collection products have been made available
to the commercial aerospace community by taking advantage of NASA's technology
transfer program.
In 1990, Avtec Systems, Inc., located in Fairfax, Virginia, developed
its first telemetry boards for Goddard Space Flight Center. Since that
time, Avtec has provided innovative, flexible telemetry board and system
designs which keep costs low and reliability high. Avtec's customer base
has quickly expanded to include a number of NASA centers, major aerospace
firms, and a diverse set of commercial and government buyers.
"Over the years, we have worked closely with NASA engineers to
design products that meet the needs of the NASA community. We have leveraged
this technology to serve the needs of the commercial aerospace community
as well," says Avtec's Mary Ellen Orsino, manager of marketing and
sales.
Avtec products now include PC/AT, PCI, and VME-based high speed I/O
boards and turnkey systems. By building intelligence into its boards, high
data rates can be attained without burdening the host central processing
unit.
| Commercial sales of Avtec telemetry hardware
was founded on NASA transferred technology. |
In addition to Avtec's board-level products, the company offers complete
turnkey systems for telemetry acquisition, data quality monitoring, bit
error rate testing, and high speed data logging. Along with high speed
bidirectional telemetry boards, the company integrates third party products
to support several functions, including receiver, bit synchronizer, time
code processor, and others as required.
From the beginning, Avtec boards were designed with flexibility in mind
by implementing board functionality on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA).
Then, as additional functions were developed, the same board could be used
by swapping logic modules. The result? Cost savings to the customer by
providing for multiple uses of the same board designs. Additionally, by
providing bidirectional capability (both frame synchronization/decommutation
and PCM simulation) on a single board, Avtec has matched what competitors
charge for unidirectional boards.
| One of Avtec's product lines uses NASA-designed
Reed-Solomon Decoder chips. |
The most recent and most successful technology transfer from NASA to
Avtec is the Programmable Telemetry Processor (PTP), a personal computer-based,
multi-channel telemetry front-end processing system originally developed
to support the NASA communications (NASCOM) network. The PTP performs data
acquisition, real-time network transfer, and store and forward operations.
There are over 100 PTP systems located in NASA facilities and throughout
the world. Widespread NASA support of PTP is a result of its low cost and
flexible design. Since commercializing the PTP, Avtec has added even more
capabilities, created a commercial documentation package, and provides
top-notch technical support on the hardware and software for the systems
they sell.
"Our NASA customers have responded enthusiastically," says
Avtec's Orsino. "We recently delivered over 100 systems to Goddard's
NASCOM division for the NASCOM-IP transition, resulting in over $1.5 million
in sales for Avtec," she says.
| Avtec has provided telemetry hardware
in support of NASA's Communications Network (NASCOM). Shown are NASCOM
boards at Goddard Space Flight Center's Simulations Operations Center. |
PTPs are scheduled to be used to support Landsat-7, and Stanford University's
Gravity Probe B Relativity experiment. "We are also working with many
other NASA and commercial aerospace customers, selling PTPs for use all
over the world," Orsino adds.
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