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Data Acquisition for Flying Cars – aka Personal Drones or eVTOL Aircrafts

Overview

Data Acquisition for Flying Cars – aka Personal Drones or eVTOL Aircrafts | ACME Case Study

Data Acquisition for Flying Cars – aka Personal Drones or eVTOL Aircrafts case study showing how ACME rugged portable workstations support deployable computing, field operations and mission-critical workflows. The case study explains the application context, deployment challenge and the role of ACME portable hardware as part of an integrated solution.

Personal aviation is soon to become a thing – at least for the well-heeled technocrat. In a few years, it may even be possible to commute in a flying “car” (assuming we must still go to the office!). To be fair, civilian electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts are likely to have applications beyond personal sightseeing. Designed for urban air mobility, these eVTOL aircrafts can be used for air taxi, delivery, and recreation. There are also less frivolous uses, such as medical assistance, search and rescue, cargo, oil, farming, and military.

The eVTOL industry has seen heavy investments by Toyota, Uber, Baillie Gifford (the second largest investor in Tesla), and multiple startups. Major suppliers, such as BAE systems and Honeywell, are also anticipating commercial flights by 2025. The development of components and systems for the diverse and impending ecosystems of advanced air mobility is well underway.

Clearly there are safety concerns that need to be addressed as these types of aircraft are generally flown at lower altitudes. While this may sound safer than higher altitudes, it is still dangerous as there is much less time to deploy a parachute or other safety device. As such, there is a ton of development work going into flight control systems, flight testing, ballistic parachutes, air-bag deployment, and failure mode analysis.

Requirements

Our customer needs a portable solution that can be powered from a vehicle battery and have display capabilities for video and telemetry feeds. This unit will use modern telemetry technology to record sensor data in field comprehensive test campaigns. DC input Dual or triple displays Network connectivity High performance Rugged build

Solution

The customer was originally drawn to the MegaPAC L2 or L3, but after a consultation realized that the NotePAC III Pro V was the better choice. The four removable drive bays allow for up to 30TB of removable storage for all telemetry data from test flights, and the compact dimensions make setup in the field for data acquisition much more straightforward. Die-cast metal construction means the NotePAC III Pro V is robust enough to survive field survey work. Triple displays in a portable computer maximize screen space for video and telemetry graphics, along with a control interface. Key Benefits: Telemetry hardware is used to monitor, alert and record data remotely and automatically. Measurements are transmitted to receiving equipment for analysis. Telemetry from an on-board flight test instrumentation system is the primary source of real-time measurement and status information transmitted during the testing of crewed and uncrewed aircraft. Robust tactical computing and data acquisition will allow for the monitoring of the platform’s behavior as the aircraft is flown in all types of weather and distances. Ethernet via Telemetry (EVTM) makes studying urban weather and radio frequency (RF) multipath interference feasible.
Result
The customer ultimately purchased our NotePAC III Pro V for field telemetry acquisition. For more information, please click the link below:
See It in Action
Interested in learning more about how rugged portable platforms are shaping the future of real-time telemetry processing? Visit the International Telemetry Conference (ITC) in Las Vegas, October 20–23, 2025, to see these solutions in action and connect with industry experts driving innovation in telemetry.