MCDL – Multi Configurable Data Link

Authors
T. Spensatellu, Alenia Aeronautica S.p.A., a Finmeccanica Company, Italy
S. Cammarata, TESEO S.p.a., Italy

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative tool in the data acquisition and flight test instrumentation field. The tool target is to drastically improve the effectiveness of Flight Test, reducing the flight set up time, the volume and weight of copper cabling required and the risk of human error in arranging all connections. The tool is based on TESEO high performing and modular fiber-optic based Multi Configurable Data Link (MCDL), which is able to acquire a large number of signals from analog and digital sources and transfer them over-fiber across the aircraft.

The solution is creating, quite close the sources, a local hub in which the signals to be acquired or monitored are conveyed, and transfer the acquired data, over fiber via a digital optical link to another MCDL hub, in order to reconstruct them faithfully in analog/digital form. In this way, the reconstructed signals can be acquired by an existing or dedicated acquisition system or being remotely monitored. The fiber-optic based system offers an additional advantage: over-fiber signals are immune to harsh EMI environments and inert in the presence of explosive materials. The MCDL modular system has offered a competitive advantage due to its compactness and extreme modularity and configurability.

This paper, written for scientific purposes, will focus on a simple scenario consisting of 32 analog channels, time coherent and isochronous, but many other configurations are possible by optical link band-width only limited.