A new Checkout-and-Testing-Equipment (CTE) for a satellite Telemetry using LabVIEW

Telemetry is an essential subsystem in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Remote-Sensing satellites, as it is responsible for gathering satellite housekeeping data from all satellite subsystems, malfunction detection, performance evaluation and statistics. In this paper, a novel Checkout-and-Testing-Equipment (CTE) is proposed which simulates the Telemetry interfaces to other satellite subsystems and the Telemetry inputs such as: satellite sensors, and tests the full functionality of the Telemetry software/hardware. Besides, this work models the Telemetry data-acquisition core (Sensors Commutators) using LabVIEW. This new CTE is designed and implemented using LabVIEW and verified using National Instruments (NI) modules such as: NI Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA), NI PXI-6509, NI PXI-6723 and NI PXI-4110. The Telemetry software framework is developed using the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of C8051f120 Silicon Labs microcontroller.