Aircraft Systems Classifications

6Supporting Ground Systems

It is important to recognise that the airborne systems will interact with a set of ground‐based system as illustrated in Figure 6.1 (Seabridge and Moir, 2020). In most instances, these systems will be a normal element of the airborne systems and routinely collecting information and presenting it to a system on the ground for analysis and action. In other instances, the system will be for a particular part of the development process, for example the collection of flight test data. In the case of unmanned air vehicles, the system forms a closed‐loop system to allow the aircraft to be piloted remotely. In all these cases, the requirements of the ground system must be considered in the design of the airborne system.

The collection and transfer of information from the aircraft to the ground system will vary according to the age and technology of the aircraft type. The wide scale use of high‐speed data bus networks means that most of the data generated by the system is available on the data bus. The transfer in modern times is usually by data link or telemetry, but previous generations of aircraft have used magnetic tape reels or cassettes.

What is important is that collected data is uniquely identified and is in a format that is understood at the receiving station. Typical items for mutual agreement include the following:

• Data name
• Unique identifier
• Range
• Resolution
• Sampling rate

Typically the identification of data or parameters measured will in accordance ...