An On-Board, Extensible Multi-Channel Data Acquisition System for Turbine Engine Testing

We propose to develop an innovative on-board, extensible multi-channel data acquisition system that can accurately collect weak output signals of multiple strain sensors, which are distributed on a turbine engine. It includes a 24-bit high resolution analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion circuit, a high speed FPGA for synchronization and data management, and an Ethernet system with smart sensor memory to transfer the sensor data in real-time to a remote computer system. It requires only one wire connection between the test cell and the control room, has high noise robustness, and achieves fast data synchronization and efficient task automation. We have previously designed and tested several similar multi-channel data acquisition systems, including a bird monitoring system that includes 192 audio channels for real-time bird strike monitoring for airport safety, and a wireless ultrasonic sensor network with 64 (8 x 8) multiplexing data acquisition channels with up to 5 MHz sampling rate for each channel. These previous experience will certainly help us successfully conduct the proposed work.