Design of a scalable, generic sensor data recorder for Sonar systems

Gigabit Ethernet is commonly used for communicating sensor data in current Sonar systems. Recording of sensor data during sea trials of Sonars is essential for system analysis, enhancement and training. A system that records data from different sensors and plays it back in real-time is thus an indispensable part of Sonar. This paper presents the design and implementation of a generic, Gigabit Ethernet based Sensor Data Recorder for Sonar systems. The recording solution is realised on high-end servers running Linux patched with Xenomai real-time framework. High-capacity, scalable storage for recorder is achieved using Fibre Channel-based SAN solution. The design has been implemented and tested in lab using sensor configurations of typical Sonars. The recorder is capable of throughputs up to 80 MB/s.