Wireless Sensor Network for Flight Test

Flight test programs have always been challenged with having to add a sufficient number of transducers and instruments to make meaningful measurements without having an adverse impact on the operation and performance of the vehicle being tested. Transducer and instrumentation wiring is intrusive and labor intensive, often requires vehicle modifications to support, is subject to reliability concerns, and adds a significant amount of weight when hundreds of transducers are required. Invocon proposes a Wireless Sensor Network system that will significantly reduce or eliminate the wiring used today to transmit transducer data. Wireless sensor nodes will make the same measurements acquired today with wired transducers, and in some cases will use exactly the same transducer. The key difference is that transceiver units will collect data via RF communication from the wireless sensor nodes, eliminating the need for wired interconnectivity to relay data, and provide the opportunity to collect data from large numbers of sensors. An interface module collects the sensor data and converts the data into a format that facilitates data recording and/or transmission to a ground station via telemetry.