NEBVAPPLICATKONS& RECENT RESEARCH

New Applications Editor:Prof. Demetrios MichalopoulosCalifornia State University, Fullerton

Tektronix 4054 teams with radarfor automated boundary judging

__ _ _ __ __ - - -at aerobatic championshipsThe World Aerobatic Championships at-

tract some of the most highly skilled aircraftpilots in the world. Coming from four con-tinents, 50 pilots plus crew members met in

I -'Oshkosh,Wisconsin, for the 10th champion-ships in August of 1980.The feats of these pilots might be compared

AEROBATIC to those of competition ice skaters; in flying,AIRCRAFT however, the rink is three-dimensional and in-

vb 3 1|Imaginary boundaries define a1000-meter cube with a lower surface 100meters above ground. The contestants fly theirplanes into the cube, execute their patterns,and leave; they are penalized if they do not stay

flight path, allowing ittocoprethlihtpthwihstre atdsriinheaeoatco within its unseen boundaries.How can the judges be absolutely sure that

and hard copy,real-timegraphicsthatR these boundaries have not been violated? Inthe boundaries ofthecube.previous championships, boundary judges

R ~~~~~~~~wereaided by theodolites, surveyor's in-struments for- measuring angles, placed at the

___ ~~~~~~~~~~~fourcorners. While this worked well, it was.1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~notabsolutely accurate, and boundary judg-

ing was a frequent point of controversy.To overcome this problem, Jim Young, who

was to be chairman of the 10th champion-ships, and Gene Baskevitch, engineer atHughes Aircraft in El Segundo, California,examined any number of electronic measure-ment means, including laser. Radar was themost promising, but many types with thedesired attributes were classified and notavailable for civilian use. After Young' s un-timely death, Don Taylor, senior pilot withUnited AiAlines, stepped in as chairman andcontinued the search with Baskevitch. Theychose a commercial radar used by the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration, theWF-100-4 built by Enterprise Electronics ofEnterprise, Alabama.Ken Clark of NOAA and two engineers

from Enterprise, Buddy Rogers and RonMcDougald, cooperated to modify one of the

The judges at the 10th World Aerobstic Championships were assisted by a sophisticated radar NOAA radars. The modifications-now stan-system linked with a Tektronix 4054 computer. The radar informed the computer system of the dard on these units-improved the trackingflight path, allowing it to compare the flight path with stored data describing the aerobatic box and range capabilities to follow the small, fast-and supply hard copy, real-time graphics that revealed the path, flight time, and any violations of moving aircraft.the boundaries of the cube. With this in place, they had to figure out the

COMPUTER100

rest of the system. Baskevitch wantedTektronix equipment for the graphics. "Thecalculations could be done on any computer,"he said, "but it would be very hard to convincea pilot, judge, or others not familiar with com-puters of the computer's accuracy withoutgraphics."The original plan had been to interface the

radar with a Tektronix 4014 terminal and aminicomputer, but the minicomputer didn'twork out. Consequently, a Tektronix 4054replaced both the mini and the 4014. Rogersdeveloped a special interface which allowedthe 4054 to communicate with the radarthrough the RS-232 port of the 4054. DylonCorporation in San Diego lent a Dylon 9-tracktape system which interfaced directly with the4054 through the general purpose interfacebus.At this point, a Basic program was required.

Bob Davis, a recent high school graduateheaded for engineering school at UCLA, wasworking part-time for Hughes Aircraft andheard about the project. He worked withTaylor, Baskevitch, Don Tollefson, PaulMontag, and others to design the program anddevelop the algorithms. Davis produced a600 + statement program which identified theaerial cube in relation to the radar, read theaircraft's positions from the radar, analyzedthem in relation to the boundaries, graphedthe aircraft's flight in real time, and trans-ferred the readings to a 4924 tape drive.During competition, as an aircraft ap-

proached the aerobatic box, it was observedwith a manual optical tracker. At a wing wag-gle that signaled the pilot was ready, theobserver keyed a switch that automaticallylocked on the autotrack function of the radardish and initiated the digital timer. From thispoint on, the radar tracked and sensed the air-craft's position automatically, relaying thetarget range, azimuth, and elevation data tothe 4054.The Basic program running on the 4054 con-

tained the coordinates comprising all six sur-faces of the aerobatic box. If at any time theaircraft location coordinates sensed by theradar exceeded the extent of the aerobatic box,the 4054 noted the penetrated surface, thepenetration coordinates, the time of penetra-tion, and then assessed penalty points.At the flight completion wing waggle the

automode was disengaged, advising the 4054to total the penalties and note the flight se-quence time in minutes and seconds. Addi-tionally, the 4054 analyzed the hundreds ofthousands of aircraft position inputs for theflight, yielded the mean position of the air-craft's entire sequence relative to the center ofthe box, awarded the proper framing score infull points and tenths of a point, and displayedeverything on the 4054 screen.The hard copy of the display was forwarded

to the master scoring room, and the 4924 tapecopy of the flight was retained for 12 hours.This enabled the judges to recall and review theflight on the screen in the event of a protest.The software copy was later transferred to theDylon 9-track tape drive for archiving.As a backup, the old-fashioned corner theo-

dolites were in place, and a radio hotline wasmaintained to alert the boundary judges tostep in for the system in the event of failure.This, however, was not necessary; there wasno down time in the two weeks of the contest.

Tymshare's remote bankingautomatic tellers serve22 institutions

Tymshare's Option network links multipleshared automatic teller machines located indiverse public places to host computers atparticipating financial institutions, using theTymshare computer switching system locatedin Irvine, California, as the traffic manager.The first 1 I teller kiosks in the net-

work-called Option neighborhood tel-lers-were formally opened December 3 atshopping center and supermarket locationsthroughout the San Fernando Valley area ofLos Angeles. At each kiosk, customers canperform transactions including deposits,withdrawals, and balance inquiries 24 hours aday, seven days a week, with any of 22 parti-cipating financial institutions. The Tymsharesystem is capable of handling 100 institutionsand 4000 teller terminals, as well as a varietyof transactions more sophisticated than thosenow available.The system provides participating institu-

tions with their choice of either on-line or off-line operating modes, or a combination of thetwo. In the on-line mode, the automatic tellermachine is connected directly to the institu-tion's host computer, and all customerauthorizations and transaction updates areposted as they, occur. In the off-line mode,the transaction authorization is handled bythe Tymshare switch, using policy andcustomer card files provided by the insti-tution. In this mode, all transaction in-formation is stored for later transfer to thehost computer. In the combined mode, thetransactions are handled in the on-line modeunless the institution's computer is notavailable, in which case the off-line mode isused.

The new Option automatic teller machineslocated in neighborhood shopping areas per-mit retail customers to perform transactionswith any participating bank, savings and loanassociation, or credit union from a singleteller terminal. The system, operated by Tym-share, Inc., is the first of its kind to beestablished by a third-party company inde-pendent of any financial institution.

.3111115I

w aS E _ ES S ESFebruary 1981 Reader Service Number9 II.-----

p* DEAN OFENGINEERING

The Newark College of Engineering of NewJersey Institute of Technology invites ap-plications and nominations forthe positionof Dean of Engineering. Newark College ofEngineering, long known asa leader in engi-neering education, offers degree grantingprograms in chemical, electrical, mechani-cal, civil and environmental engineeringthrough the doctorate. The Dept. of In-dustrial and Management Engineering of-fers the Bachelor's and Master of Sciencedegrees. The College also offers degreeprograms in electrical, mechanical, manu-facturing, construction and environmentalengineering technology, and participates inthe Institute's cooperative education andprecollege programs. The College is en-gaged in advanced research projects vitalto the region and the nation. In addition tothe engineering programs, the Institute isengaged in active instructional and re-search programs in architecture, computerand information sciences, managementscience, industrial administration, survey-ing, physical sciences and humanities.Candidates should have an earned doc-torate, demonstrated academic and ad-ministrative abilities, proven teaching andresearch experience and recognition as apracticing engineer. Application deadlineMarch 20,1981. Position available 1981/82academic year or earlier. Letters of applica-tion or nomination and curriculum vitae in-cluding names of reference should be sentto: Personnel Dept., Box DE.

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February 1981 Reader Service Number 9