Data acquisition hits the road (continued)
A continuation of our interview with Michael J. Sullivan, VP and CTO, Astro-Med, which appeared in the July 2007 Viewpoint column.
Larry Maloney, Contributing Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 7/1/2007
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Q: To what extent have you leveraged advances you’ve made in the medical and packaging arenas to T&M products?
A: The medical market moved us into custom molded plastic and other techniques that improve product appearance and reduce size, and both the medical and avionics markets have driven our design process to become more rigorous so that we can support the additional regulatory burdens. This has helped us significantly in the global marketplace, including our T&M products.
Q: Where are you seeing the greatest volume—in portable systems or in large-format, rack-mounted units?
A: For us, the big demand is for portable systems with as much capability as possible. We still make rack-mounted units, but they are less of a factor these days. In a single, portable package, we can now put signal conditioners, data acquisition, and full-screen review capability. This was just not possible several years ago. The ability to move data easily from a portable unit to your PC workstation is another factor driving portable systems. Ethernet, USB, and memory cards make the transfer very simple. Even so, a portion of our business continues to be in maintaining complex systems in which you need to record and study a dozen different signals from a variety of transducers.
Q: To what extent have your relationships with major customers, such as Boeing and Airbus, helped to trigger development of new systems and technology?
A: Astro-Med has always worked with our major customers to provide customized solutions. On occasion, this work leads to a specific new product for our general market. This was certainly the case for Tough Switch, a ruggedized Ethernet switch that we developed for the C-17 aircraft.
A more significant impact grows from the requirements placed on you by major customers when they move to more demanding technologies or processes. To support the increasingly high standards of the avionics community, for example, Astro-Med has invested heavily in product testing and quality assurance that will benefit all product groups. There is also a benefit to having our design staff participate in reviews and other activities with engineers that have a wide variety of specialties. This exposure to alternative technologies and design methodologies has a stimulating effect that can advance seemingly unrelated product development.
Q: What types of applications are most suitable for your new Dash 18X data-acquisition recorder?
A: Many of the attractive Dash 18X features can be found in other Astro-Med Dash products, but the Dash 18X is particularly suited to applications where a lot of channels need to be acquired. The big LCD and built-in operating system allow review and analysis of data at the point of capture. This makes it popular with engineers who troubleshoot complex equipment or need to see results immediately.
The signal conditioning in this product is also very flexible, and the interface is user friendly, which makes the unit popular with equipment pools. The Dash 18X even accepts data from a USB camera. Finally, the ability to stream sampled data directly to a hard drive lets engineers see large periods of time without giving up sample rate. This is very helpful when the problem is intermittent, such as when technical staff must troubleshoot a complex system.
Q: Where do you see the greatest demand for your telemetry products?
A: NASA and military facilities are the biggest drivers. In those applications, engineers and technicians use our products in ground tracking stations around the world. Typically, our monitoring products connect to the large data stream coming down from the vehicle under test and select those signals required by a specific engineer. Our role is to display and record these signals in a way that has the most meaning to particular specialists. In some cases, the specialist may determine if a test should continue. Our telemetry stations need to adapt to a variety of data streams and must allow data views to be customized by the specialist. This includes the style of presentation, such as an x-y plot, number of channels, time base, and so forth.
Q: To what extent are test engineers networking their data-acquisition systems to share data for analysis?
A: The requirement to share data over networks is one of the more significant changes to the industry in the last several years. The most obvious benefit is that different specialists can process and interpret the same raw data from their own perspectives. This can result in a better picture of the underlying process being studied. To that end, Astro-Med provides Astro-View as a free waveform viewer for any PC. It has been very popular.
Another benefit of networking can be reducing “windshield time.” A properly equipped data-acquisition system can be set up at a remote site and multiple engineers can access captured files without having to leave the office.
Q: Looking ahead, where will Astro-Med put its focus in new product development for test and measurement?
A: Astro-Med continues to invest heavily in product development. Our goal is to obsolete our products before someone else does. Rugged field recorders will continue to be popular with improvements in specifications and a reduction in size. Astro-Med will remain a leader in streaming high-speed, sampled data directly to hard drives. This will require the use of new interfaces as disk technologies evolve. We also believe that telemetry ground stations will continue to be significant, but there will be a shift to more distributed technologies, multimedia, and software-based products. And in terms of geographic markets, we see our international businesses growing, particularly in such regions as China. As a result, we will need to meet the challenge of complying with a variety of international standards and regulations.
Read the first part of this interview.
