A distributed computing environment for signal processing and systems health monitoring

The evolution of systems health monitoring and signal processing is toward online automated techniques that improve performance, cost effectiveness, and safety associated with operating modern machines. The evolution of computing is toward distributed networks of dissimilar applications communicating through standard interfaces and tools. This papers gives an overview of a scaleable collaborative computing environment that routes real-time and non-real-time data via transaction control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP). A primary enabling technology is an object-oriented, Java/sup TM/-based, software data server and data management tool. A network composed of one or more of these data servers provides storage, data stream parsing and merging, and compatibility among similar and dissimilar applications running anywhere on the network. Connectivity to mobile platforms is accomplished through a wireless spread spectrum approach. Applications to flight research and aviation safety are discussed.