The digital flight recorder (DFR) has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2005. From its early days as a general-purpose video capture computer to its now embedded device platform, the DFR has redesigned how airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) content is handled.
The Challenge:
In the early 2000s, digital video interfaces such as HDMI and DVI became a new standard, replacing analog video such as composite and VGA. The newly designed digital video recorder (DVR) needed to adapt to record these newer digital interfaces, while maintaining analog sources and the hardware itself was larger than necessary.
In 2005, an aerospace and defense contractor sought a solution to replace the aging and obsolete Hi-8 tape recorders used as video recorders for unmanned drone missions. The customer wanted a computing solution that would allow them to digitize the analog video feeds. The solution also required digitizing and time-synchronizing the proprietary metadata as serial over audio.
The Solution:
In 2005, Radeus Labs developed a general-purpose 2U computing platform incorporating commercially available video and audio capture cards. The design used an existing 1U external RS-232 tape deck control box for each computer.
In 2014, the team created a more robust and secure design based on customer feedback and service history. The newly designed and rebranded Digital Flight Recorder (DFR) uses embedded long-life components in a more compact custom design. With an ultra-rugged 1U rackmount design incorporating HMI controls on the front panel, saving over 8U of space on the program. This design maintained forward and backward compatibility, with both analog and digital sources using ahighly customized embedded Linux O/S. The DFR was quickly adopted as the new recorder and replaced the DVR/VDVR units as they aged. The new consolidated platform became widely used, with over 1,000 units deployed in 8 years.
The Impact:
With 2,000 units deployed and over a decade of fielded service, the DFR remains a field-proven solution for aerial drone flight recording. The DFR also continues to evolve. Over the years, it has added:
- IP multicast capture and playback for H.264 and H.265 video.
- KLV-A and KLV-B streaming metadata capture and playback.
- Custom/proprietary metadata formats.
With the advent of the virtualization age in computing, the DFR has even been adapted as a streaming-only (Multicast Capture/Playback) virtual device for use with Hypervisor environments.
