A Forth-based real-time in-flight monitoring system

An aircraft flight parameter monitoring systeml (Flight Information Package or FIP) has been implemented using a set of transducers and a battery powered VME 68010 bus computer with MACH-11 FORTH in ROM. Aircraft speed, bank angle, roll angle, angle of attack, vertical velocity, altitude, and heading are available over RS-232 ports to both a client device and a data logger. The FIP client device is the second generation Acoustic Orientation Instrument (AOI) which encodes aircraft flight parameters into acoustic signals.= Transformation algorithms and simple digital filtering remove common flight data anomalies and provide real-time data with minimal artifacts. AN OVERVIEW OF THE FIP The Flight Instrument Package (FIP) consists of four major components (Figure 1). The fust, the sensors, translate real-world motion and position information into signals that are used by the other active components of the FIP. The second component, the signal conditioning system, translates the sensor information into electrical signals that can be easily interpreted by the computer analog to digital convertor. The third part, the computer system, processes the incoming analog signals and produces a numerical output that is directly correlated to the actual aircraft maneuvers. The final module in the system is the battery package. This stand-alone power system consists of multiple flight certified gel-type batteries and provides Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted, provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direst commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or spectilc permission. @1991 ACM 0-89791-462-7/90/0200-0031 $1.50 power for up to 4 hours to both the FIP and the AOI thus eliminating the need to use power convertors and the noisy aircraft 24 Volt 400 Hz supply. The entire package measures 24” x 24” x 15” and is easily removed from the aircraft after a test flight.