A SMART TELEMETRY COMPRESSION SYSTEM FOR A SPACE INSTRUMENT - MARS-96ELISMA INSTRUMENT COMPLEX

A smart telemetry compression system has been developed for the ELISMA complex of instruments on MARS-96. Most of the data generated by the individual instruments of the complex require compression before trans mission back to Earth since the complex is capable of producing data a t many times the allocated ELISMA telemetry data rate. A compression a lgorithm was produced that could achieve a selectable compression rati o of 5: 1, 6: 1, or 7: 1. An equivalent fuzzy logic controller sets th e compression ratio for each data record of each individual instrument depending on: (i) the best ratio as determined by the variability of the data in that record; (ii) the instantaneous level of the data held in the telemetry buffer; and (iii) on the current usage of that instr ument's data allocation for the present orbit around Mars.