Devel­op­ment of mea­sur­ing instru­ments by rd elec­tron­ic GmbH since 1981

High­lights from the first forty years of the com­pa­ny’s history

rd electronic’s first cus­tom-devel­oped prod­ucts were syn­chro­niza­tion units based on the DCF77. These were used, for exam­ple, to syn­chro­nize seis­mic mea­sure­ments cov­er­ing large geo­graph­i­cal areas or to align flight paths for tor­na­do jet fight­ers at the Ger­man Armed Forces’ test sites. This was fol­lowed by IRIG‑B time sig­nal encoders for record­ing satel­lite-based data (Meteosat) and for syn­chro­niz­ing spa­tial­ly sep­a­rat­ed mea­sure­ments of all kinds.

By the way, you can see the IRIG‑B encoder from rd elec­tron­ic GmbH at Deutschen Muse­um von Meis­ter­w­erken der Natur­wis­senschaft und Tech­nik (short: Deutsches Muse­um) in Munich.

MS-256 (1981–1990)

This device marked the entry into mul­ti­proces­sor-based mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy on net­worked sys­tems. It was an inno­v­a­tive new devel­op­ment in par­al­lel, mul­ti-chan­nel real-time mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy in net­worked units, each with 8 ana­log or 16 dig­i­tal chan­nels. With up to 32 par­tic­i­pants, par­al­lel-oper­at­ing mea­sure­ment units with a total of 256 dig­i­tal or ana­log mea­sure­ment chan­nels could be oper­at­ed in a cen­tral­ly read­able net­work. The devices were pri­mar­i­ly used in the ener­gy sec­tor and for sur­vey­ing large-scale facil­i­ties, such as the solar and hydro­gen plant in Neuer­burg vorm Wald, as well as for air sep­a­ra­tion units, bridge sur­veys, and ener­gy mea­sure­ments of first-gen­er­a­tion wind and solar pow­er plants. Major cus­tomers includ­ed BMW, Linde, AEG, Siemens, and FFE. 

TDS100 (1990–2000)

This series of devices rep­re­sent­ed a fur­ther devel­op­ment of mobile, bat­tery-pow­ered mea­sure­ment units fea­tur­ing a total of 6 ana­log and 16 dig­i­tal inputs, all gal­van­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed from one anoth­er. The TDS100 marked the begin­ning of fleet mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy in syn­chro­nized large-scale tri­als dur­ing the devel­op­ment of vehi­cles by the Ger­man auto­mo­tive indus­try. A dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of this small, mobile, and ener­gy-effi­cient real-time mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy was its mul­ti­sen­sor inputs. These enabled the mea­sure­ment of volt­age, cur­rent, and resis­tance, there­by allow­ing the con­nec­tion of a wide vari­ety of sen­sors using two‑, three‑, and four-wire tech­nol­o­gy. A new­ly devel­oped syn­chro­niza­tion method enabled the cal­i­bra­tion of all freely mov­able mea­sur­ing devices via spe­cial­ized read­out soft­ware. In total, up to 120 mea­sur­ing devices in a large-scale test could be syn­chro­nized to 200 µsec. The sys­tem was also used in the sur­vey­ing of the Air­bus A380 wings.

Diag­nos­tic and I/C Bus Mon­i­tors (1993–2005)

In addi­tion to stan­dard test equip­ment, bus mon­i­tor­ing meth­ods were devel­oped and test­ed specif­i­cal­ly for mon­i­tor­ing diag­nos­tic inter­faces in vehi­cles. Bus mon­i­tors are now being used in the emerg­ing field of vehi­cle con­trol unit net­work sim­u­la­tion (ECU Net­works), in trou­bleshoot­ing pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and process­es, in field oper­a­tions in gen­er­al, and in auto­mo­tive repair shops.

TDS E1590 (1995–2010)

TDS1590 — Flex­i­bly con­fig­urable up to the 3rd generation

Fol­low­ing the TDS256, the TDSE1590 was devel­oped as a com­pact, mod­u­lar, ½‑19-inch, 2U vari­ant. In addi­tion to the indi­vid­u­al­ly gal­van­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed mul­ti-sen­sor inputs used here as well, DSPs were employed for the first time. In addi­tion, par­al­lel bus inputs for var­i­ous vehi­cle com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems could be acquired in real time via up to 8 input cards (ana­log, dig­i­tal, I‑Bus, K‑Bus, diag­nos­tic bus, CAN bus, MOST). Fur­ther­more, mul­ti­ple units could be net­worked and syn­chro­nized via Eth­er­net. The sys­tem also pro­vid­ed space for hard disk stor­age for autonomous long-term measurement.

OEM

In par­tic­u­lar, the TDS E1590 was licensed by mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy man­u­fac­tur­ers and brought to mar­ket (Hewlett Packard, Dewetron, Kistler, T‑Systems, Kayser-Threde, etc.). This also led to the devel­op­ment of addi­tion­al appli­ca­tion-spe­cif­ic device mod­ules for con­nect­ing mea­sur­ing wheels, bat­tery mon­i­tor­ing (U‑Bat), or spe­cial in-vehi­cle com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. Based on exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of par­al­lel, real-time mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy, a mea­sure­ment sys­tem with up to 200 chan­nels was devel­oped for instal­la­tion in vehi­cle crash dum­mies for the com­pa­ny Kayser-Threde. The unique fea­ture was the require­ment for mea­sure­ment data acqui­si­tion syn­chro­nized to 20 µsec across all chan­nels, local stor­age of the mea­sure­ment data, and net­work­ing via USB. This allowed sub­net­works with mul­ti­ple chan­nels (limbs, head, etc.) to be sep­a­rat­ed from the net­work and used or cal­i­brat­ed individually.

Mal­ibu

The Mal­ibu Sys­tem was devel­oped as an OEM mul­ti-sen­sor, four-chan­nel mea­sure­ment sys­tem for HBM. In addi­tion to minia­tur­iza­tion and gal­van­ic chan­nel iso­la­tion, the size and hous­ing design—featuring an inte­grat­ed connector—were key ele­ments of the mea­sure­ment device fam­i­ly licensed by HBM.

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