Conduant's StreamStor® recording and playback technology is providing a variety of real-world solutions.
Long Duration Recording - MIT Haystack Observatory
Airborne and Marine Radar - System Planning Corporation
High-Channel Count System - B & B Technologies
Data Capture Provides Critical Element To Observing Reentry of Booster Stage Debris
Application
Radio astronomy/Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) — Using multiple antennas to collect data from space to study other galaxies and phenomena such as black holes, quasars and pulsars. MIT Haystack Observatory's project is to define and develop the next generation recording and playback system (known as Mark V) for use among the world's VLBI radio astronomy community.
Problem
The VLBI community has traditionally used large, reel-to-reel tape systems for recording and playback. These tape-based systems are not capable of high-speed recording. and maintenance costs continue to rise. Tape is difficult to search (i.e., no instant random access ability, requires rewinding) and recently tape has become more expensive than disk. MIT concluded that the next generation of VLBI data systems should be based on commercial off-the-shelf components (COTS) using magnetic disk technology and standard IDE hard disk drives.
Conduant solution
The ideal solution for MIT combined low cost drives and a hardware configuration optimized for sustained high-speed recording. In early 2001, using an existing StreamStor® system, MIT put together and successfully demonstrated an ultra-fast, disk-based solution in less than two months costing less than one-tenth of existing tape-based system. Today, MIT is using the latest StreamStor® technology to record data continuously, for days at a time, at sustained rates of 1 GB/s.
They said it
"StreamStor® has a lot of potential applications in other disciplines, too. Military, intelligence, as well as the radio noise from distant galaxies."
- Dr. Alan Whitney of MIT Haystack Observatory
Application
Multi-channel, airborne and marine radar recording system
Problem
Standard instrumentation radar systems have problems with long-duration continuous recording.
Conduant solution
System Planning Corporation (SPC) first used StreamStor® products for an airborne VHF instrumentation radar system that performs reentry observations of the boosters from the early phase of heavy-lift space launches. VHF radar has sufficient sensitivity to detect, acquire and track intact, reentering booster stages over long ranges and to provide signature information on the reentry, breakup and disintegration processes. A StreamStor-based data recording system is used to continuously record four channels of radar data.
SPC has also integrated a StreamStor®-based recorder into the Advanced Countermeasures and RCS Evaluation System (ACRES). The StreamStor® device provides the enabling technology for the ACRES countermeasures-monitoring mode. It permits continuous digitization and storage of RF backscatter and emissions from targets under test. The ACRES is employed to check electronic warfare suites aboard naval platforms. A unique feature of the ACRES is its ability to collect and display RCS signatures for dynamic maritime targets while simultaneously monitoring their electronic warfare emissions.
They said it
"StreamStor® has enabled us to provide customers with new capabilities, greatly enhancing our product-line and opening the door to novel applications and uses."
- Gary Rubin, Radar Physics Group, System Planning Corporation
Application
High-speed data recording of explosive events
Problem
Need to record simultaneously triggered and sampled, 16-bit data to hard disk from 64 channels at 1 MS/s per channel.
Conduant solution
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) approached B & B Technologies Inc. (BBT) with the requirement of recording phase-synchronized, simultaneously triggered, high-frequency vibration data on 64 channels with GPS time-stamping for events during recording. DTRA was currently using high-speed tape recorders but needed something more robust that would also greatly simplify the data storage and retrieval process. Each of the 64 16-bit channels were to be sampled at 1 MS/s for at least two hours resulting in a net throughput of 128 MB/s with all data stored digitally for easy retrieval and post-processing.
Conduant provided DTRA a StreamStor® 816XF card allowing throughputs of up to 200 MB/s connected to two Interactive Circuits and Systems Ltd. ICS-645 data acquisition cards and a KSI TPro GPS card. All cards and the PC were then enclosed in the StreamStor® TK200 chassis, which houses two removable drive modules each containing eight IDE hard disk drives.
Each ICS-645 card has 32 16-bit channels capable of being scanned at rates in excess of 1 MS/s while making the data available to the FPDP port. Following the FPDP protocol, the two ICS cards were connected together in a master and end slave configuration with the StreamStor® card configured as a receiving master. The ICS cards also contained a local P4 port, which allowed the boards to be configured such that the master data acquisition card issues the trigger signal and sampling clock to each subsequent ICS board in the system, ensuring simultaneous triggering and phase synchronized data.
Both drive modules were configured using eight 120 GB IDE hard drives providing a storage capacity of just under 2 TB. At the required scan rate of 1 MS/s, this allowed for test durations in excess of four hours.
They said it
"BBT could not have solved the data recording problem for DTRA without StreamStor®. Until Conduant, we were unable to find a non-tape-based, digital storage solution that integrated well with our data acquisition systems."
- Tim Brooks, President, B & B Technologies Inc.