DAQ Evaluation and Specifications for Pyroshock Testing

Abstract

Pyroshock events contain high-amplitude, extreme rise-time accelerations that can be damaging to electronics and small structures. Due to their extreme nature, these events can be difficult to capture, exceeding the performance limits of transducers, signal conditioning, and data acquisition (DAQ) equipment. This study assesses the ability of different data acquisition systems to record quality pyroshock data. Using a function generator and voltage input, different tests were performed to characterize the data acquisition systems’ anti-alias filter, out-of-band energy attenuation, number of effective bits, in-band gain, and slew rate. These tests include a shorted-input noise test, a sine sweep test, and a high amplitude low frequency square wave test. Although the data acquisition systems evaluated have similar specifications, their ability to record quality pyroshock data varied. Some of these data acquisition systems do not appropriately handle the rapid transient content and may have inadequate fidelity to record pyroshock data. Data acquisition system performance for pyroshock testing cannot be evaluated by the specification sheet alone.