Evaluation and Mission-Specific Optimization of Satellite Packet Telemetry Protocol for Use on DoD Flight Test Ranges

The DoD test range community has come to the realization that its telemetry abilities are obsolete. Efforts are therefore underway to improve telemetry systems at DoD test ranges. The overall objective of this project was to evaluate the practical use of the CCSDS packet telemetry protocol in DoD test ranges and determine the configuration that would maximize performance based on mission requirements. A secondary objective was to compare the CCSDS and ATM protocols in order to substantiate further exploration of using ATM in future DoD telemetry systems. Modeling and simulation of the CCSDS protocol showed a correlation between three CCSDS parameters and the resulting throughput and data quality performance. Flight tests confirmed the correlation between the CCSDS parameters and the resulting protocol performance, and narrowed in on the CCSDS configurations that would maximize data throughput, data quality, or provide a combined 'best of both worlds' solution. In general, flight test results matched those of the modeling and simulation work. Data collected also indicated that performance of the ATM protocol is sufficiently close to that of CCSDS to warrant further investigation of using ATM on test ranges. ATM offers the military user straightforward interoperability with civilian systems/networks.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH School of Engineering and Management is the author of 'Evaluation and Mission-Specific Optimization of Satellite Packet Telemetry Protocol for Use on DoD Flight Test Ranges', published 2002 under ISBN 9781423510598 and ISBN 1423510593.