76
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
ANSWERING THE
LATEST FTI NEEDS
Data acquisition in flight test instrumentation
systems now require wireless solutions and
the capability to handle high definition video
Aerospace platforms are evolving toward
more complex systems with increasing
sizes of system architectures, an
increasing quantity of high definition video
streams, and higher-speed avionic buses. In
addition to this, aerospace manufacturers are
always looking for better understanding of
the behavior of their platforms.
The main impact of this trend on flight test
instrumentation (FTI) is an increase of
measurement needs and growing data rates
and volume. Meanwhile, new technologies in
the areas of industrial IoT and wireless
communication have created interest within
the flight test world. As a result, the flight test
industry is seeking solutions for wireless FTI,
to reduce intrusiveness and weight of the
cabling and to reduce the impact on flight
tests of installation of instrumentation.
Zodiac Data Systems has two product
families that meet current and future industry
needs. The MDR-GT high-speed recorder
capitalizes on decades of experience from
Zodiac Data Systems. It offers extended data
recording capacities, flexibility and easy
configuration and integration. This highspeed
recorder meets the growing
requirements of the FTI community in terms
of quantity for data acquisition and storage
without negatively impacting performance.
The MDR-GT also supports modern highspeed
formats such as 10GiGE, Fiber Channel
and uncompressed
video streams. The
for the growing needs of data collection. Live
processing lets the user increase efficiency
of the storage using techniques such as peak
detection, FFT (fast Fourier transform), and
event-triggered specific recording on
separate file. These features ensure access
to critical information in real time during the
flight and faster access to data after landing.
The MDR-GT canister concept introduces a
new level of modularity to tailor the device to
each use case. The two independent
canisters offered by the MDR-GT can host
either dedicated high-capacity NVMe/SATA
storage medium or various modules that
acquire a wide variety of standard interfaces,
such as Ethernet, ARINC-429, PCM, and
analog sensors.
Finally, the MDR-GT offers high end PTP
(precision time protocol) synchronization
with PTP Master capability when used as the
core of an FTI architecture.
The second product family introduces
various standard wireless technologies into
existing products. This is a smooth way to
enable the transition from wired to wireless
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data links. The characteristics of Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE), Ultra-Wide Band (UWB)
and WiFi introduced in Zodiac Data Systems
product portfolio meet all end-user needs.
Designed for wireless accurate indoor
geolocation, UWB enables synchronized data
sampling and time stamping with accuracy
that can compete with the best wired
implementation. UWB has been tested on
aircraft to show compatibility with the
electromagnetic environment. With the hybrid
WiFi-UWB datalink, Zodiac Data Systems XMA
DAU and MDR product families exchanged
synchronized data at rates of up to 50Mbits/s,
with better than 50ns jitter. Meanwhile, BLE
provides high performance with low power
consumption, enabling fully autonomous data
acquisition, conditioning and wireless
transfer of up to 120kbits/s with innovative
non-intrusive and battery-powered DAU.
With this set of wireless technologies
available in all Zodiac Data Systems recorders
and DAUs, the need for a wireless FTI is
becoming a reality.
Side-by-side with our customers, Zodiac
Data Systems has built a scalable end-to-end
offer encompassing all equipment for FTI.
Zodiac Data Systems is continuously offering
solutions to meet the growing needs of the
Flight Test community. \\
FREE READER INQUIRY SERVICE
ZODIAC
1 // The MDR-GT, High
Speed Recorder offers
flexibility, easy
configuration and
integration in FTI
2 // The XMA DAU and
MDR product families can
exchange synchronized
data at rates of up to
50Mbits/s wirelessly
For more about this advertiser, visit www.magupdate.co.uk/pati NOW!
acquisition of ultra high
definition video comes
with optional H.264 and H.265 compression
capacity. With a sustained bitrate up to
16Gbits/s combined with an 80TBytes storage
capacity, this high-speed recorder is suitable
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