The Tornado6DOF™ records acceleration data in six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) during an ejection event in a fighter aircraft. The unit is self-contained.

The Tornado6DOF™ records acceleration data in six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) during an ejection event in a fighter aircraft. The unit is self-contained and consists of an internal accelerometer package, signal conditioning, controller, nonvolatile FLASH storage, and power supply. Tornado6DOF™ uses nine linear accelerometers that permit the calculation of acceleration data in 6-DOF. The unit is normally externally triggered by a switch closure but can be externally triggered by a TTL logic signal or internally triggered on acceleration. Once triggered, the unit powers up in less than 10 ms and starts sampling all nine accelerometers simultaneously using separate analog to digital converters at a 4 KHz rate to a sample depth of 12 bits. The unit has a 64 Megabit non volatile FLASH for record times of 128 seconds. Designed for battery operation, the unit will enter a low power armed mode waiting an external trigger (low power mode not available with internal g-level trigger). The embedded controller provides the necessary intelligence for the unit’s Built In Self Test (BIST), trigger detection, mission control, and data extraction.

The unit is supplied with Windows 2000/XP™ compatible software for data extraction and unit configuration. During data extraction, the software calibrates and filters the data. Then, it computes 6-DOF accelerations from the 9-accelerometer package.

Applications

• Ejection seat event measurement
• Crash data measurement
• Applications requiring autonomous data acquisition and storage structural monitoring

Features

• Completely autonomous for ease of installation
• Battery powered
• Low power armed mode
• External/g-level trigger capability RS-232 host interface Windows 2000/XP™ software

Specifications

Accelerometers Type:
    Variable Capacitance

Number of Channels:
    9 linear accelerometers

Resolution:
    12 bit

Sample Rate:
    4 kHz X,Y,Z Linear Accelerations

Range:
    +-50 g linear
    0-10 K rad/s2 angular

Bandwidth:
    DC - 1.5 KHz
    X,Y,Z Angular Accelerations

 Power requirements:
    Internal 9V Battery/External Power 9-14VDC

Trigger:
    Mechanical Switch, 5V TTL logic input, or g-level

Storage:
    64 Megabit FLASH, (1 - 128 sec)