Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

Addressing the Variety of Different FTI Standards in a Network Environment

September 21, 2020 | BY: Pat Quinn

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Today’s networked flight test instrumentation (FTI) hardware and supporting software need to be Babel Fish, the universal translation device from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to support the multitude of industry standards. From Chapter 10, TmNS, iNET-X, IENA and DARv3 transmission protocols to TMATs, MDL, XidML and XML metadata, both the hardware and software are required to speak and understand multiple packet types and file formats.

There are many different standards used in FTI. Working with this Babel's Tower can be complex.

Each of these formats present their own advantages and shortcomings, and each present different challenges in a distributed networked architecture.

In an ideal world, connecting networked FTI systems would be simple “plug and play.” However, experienced users will tell you that this is just not the case.

This paper discusses some of the challenges imposed on FTI, both at the hardware and software levels, by these various standards and highlights how these may be addressed.

Read the "Addressing the Variety of Different FTI Standards in a Network Environment" White Paper to learn more.

White Paper: Addressing the Variety of Different FTI Standards in a Network Environment

Author’s Biography

Pat Quinn

Product Line Manager Aerospace Instrumentation

Pat graduated in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Trinity College in 2000. He worked as a PCB Design Engineer in Stratus Technologies, a server company, before joining Acra Controls in 2006, later acquired by Curtiss-Wright, where he spent 5 years in the Design Verification Department before moving to Applications and Support. After a short time away working in an augmented reality company, he re-joined Curtiss-Wright in 2018 as the Product Line Manager for Data Acquisition, looking over the data acquisition product lines in the Newtown and Dublin business units.