Increasing the Efficiency of Missile Telemetry Tests by Using Data Compression Techniques

Abstract

Telemetry tests conducted for a missile aim to improve ongoing design work in order to better meet the performance requirements. These tests can be performed before/during the qualification stage and the design team can observe the missile’s performance via the data collected in these tests. These data packages are transmitted by wireless (radio frequency-RF) communication to a ground station for post-processing. Considering the importance of telemetry tests in affecting the project’s work in the design phase, it is important to accomplish them by gathering as much data as possible. This study proposes compressing telemetry data before the transmission process in order to reduce the bandwidth requirement. Thus, the study investigates this practice’s effects on the RF communication range and the increase in link margin via link budget calculations. Considering the characteristics of missile telemetry data (rate of change, different frame formats, etc.), synthetic telemetry data were generated in accordance with the real-life data structures, then this data were compressed using lossless data compression methods. While investigating the effects of transmitting a data train of decreased bandwidth on RF communication parameters, link budget analysis was conducted while keeping the unrelated RF parameters such as the type of modulation, transmitter/receiver characteristics, antenna properties constant. Results show that different compression algorithms provide variable amounts of improvement in downsizing the telemetry data; thus helping to increase a telemetry flight tests’ efficiency for missiles.