Packet Telecommand and Telemetry Simulator
The Packet Telecommand and Telemetry Simulator is an interactive tool for demonstrating a spacecraft communications system based on the telecommand and telemetry standards. The interactions from a run are saved in report files and can be re-run to reproduce significant cases.
The simulator represents:
- a spacecraft
- a ground system
- the uplink and downlink that connect them.
The simulator is useful for investigating the function and operation of a packet telecommand and telemetry system, especially the COP-1 protocol for telecommand. The user can:
- control the sending of simulated packets
- observe the working of the system
- modify factors such as timing delays and buffer availability to show how they affect performance
- test non-nominal situations such as decoder lockout, a faulty telecommand decoder or loss of telemetry.
The simulator contains full implementations of the telecommand ground based (encoder) and on-board (decoder) elements, built from our TC Shells. Similarly, the telemetry on-board (encoder) and ground-system (decoder) elements are built from our TM Shells.
The simulator is an executable program which runs on a PC under Windows 98/NT or later.
We have developed special versions of the simulator for use in studies of other protocols: for example, we replaced the COP-1 elements of the simulator with COP-P for a study of Proximity-1. We use the regular version of the Packet Telecommand and Telemetry Simulator in-house, for testing each new release of our software products.
The use of the simulator can be arranged as an addition to licences for our Shell packages or in addition to other services.