A Primer for Telemetry Interfacing in Accordance with NASA Standards Using Low Cost FPGAs

Photon counting detector systems on sounding rocket payloads often require interfacing asynchronous outputs with a synchronously clocked telemetry (TM) stream. Though this can be handled with an on-board computer, there are several low cost alternatives including custom hardware, microcontrollers an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2022-03
Main Authors: McCoy, Jake A, Schultz, Ted B, Tutt, James H, Rogers, Thomas, Miles, Drew M, McEntaffer, Randall L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Airborne/spaceborne computers
Commercial off-the-shelf technology
Field programmable gate arrays
Hardware
Low cost
Microcontrollers
Payloads
Power consumption
Sounding rockets
Telemetry
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Photon counting detector systems on sounding rocket payloads often require interfacing asynchronous outputs with a synchronously clocked telemetry (TM) stream. Though this can be handled with an on-board computer, there are several low cost alternatives including custom hardware, microcontrollers and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This paper outlines how a TM interface (TMIF) for detectors on a sounding rocket with asynchronous parallel digital output can be implemented using low cost FPGAs and minimal custom hardware. Low power consumption and high speed FPGAs are available as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and can be used to develop the main component of the TMIF. Then, only a small amount of additional hardware is required for signal buffering and level translating. This paper also discusses how this system can be tested with a simulated TM chain in the small laboratory setting using FPGAs and COTS specialized data acquisition products.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2203.11913