Primary Key Based Merging on Unsynchronized Data for Aeronautical Telemetry Systems

Telemetry for flight vehicles is a continuous process where even a single frame may contain critical data. Flight vehicle telemetry covering large ranges, often spanning thousands of kilometers, requires geographically separated ground stations. These stations collect data during various phases of flight and transmit this data back to the ground. However, due to communication delays over the network, variations in reception times, and inherent communication system latencies, the telemetry data files from such stations often suffer from time synchronization issues. These inconsistencies in time synchronization become especially problematic when trying to merge data from different stations. A primary key-based merging technique can address these challenges and synchronize telemetry data files from widely separated ground stations, despite the time synchronization flaws. This approach involves leveraging attributes like major frame counters and minor frame IDs, ensuring frames are accurately ordered, and gaps between frames are minimized. The primary key-based merging method offers significant improvements over traditional time-based methods by reducing the complexity of merging, improving accuracy, and ensuring that telemetry data remains complete and consistent across all stations, regardless of the time synchronization issues. This paper explores these solutions in detail and provides a framework for their practical implementation in telemetry data synchronization.