Robust, distributed-data acquisition architecture
Phil M. Neal, Martin L. G. Oldfield · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1994
This paper outlines the development of a high-speed, distributed, multiprocessor data acquisition system for remote, hostile environments. It presents details of the concurrent architecture and then briefly discusses how formal methods were used to produce a software design that was refined into deadlock-free code. An outline of system testing and results are also given. The system was originally conceived to instrument gas-turbine test facilities and the design and development is presented in this context. This latter part of this paper shows how the architecture can be simply developed or adapted to expand the range of applications. Development to data has shown the prototype to be reliable, easily expandable and maintainable due to its modular approach. A multiple module prototype system has been successfully tested, capturing data on multiple channels at rates of up to 625 kHz in environments where component loadings exceeded 3000 g.