Telemetry. Sound like Greek to you? As it happens, it is!
Telemetry is a word derived from the Greek tele
(remote) and metron (measure). It is
the technology and science of transmission and measurement of data,
automatically, by radio, by wire, or by other means of remote sources. For a
word you may have never heard before, it’s actually got a whole boatload of
uses, and dates back as far as the 1800’s!
One of the first recorded uses of telemetry goes back to
1845, and was a circuit between the Palace of the Tsar and the army
headquarters. A few years later, engineers in France built weather sensors from
Mont Blanc that sent real-time information to Paris. Modern-day uses cover a
pretty wide range of industries. They are used to track animals in the wild that
have been tagged with radio transmitters attached to them, and even to send
data transmitted to weather stations from weather balloons.
The most “glamorous” use for telemetry may be the
communication from Earth to outer space! Communicating with space probes, satellites,
or even in spaceflight is made possible by telemetry technology. There are
other more down-to-earth examples, such as motor racing; it is used to monitor
data collected from a test race to be able to tune the car for maximum performance.
Formula One racing has taken telemetry to the level that they can have advanced
enough information to estimate lap time potentiality of a certain car, so that
the driver has a goal to meet.
If you want to get even more “down to earth”, telemetry is
essential to the oil and gas industry, for being able to transmit information
for drilling mechanics real-time as a hole is being dug for optimization of the
drilling.
Telemetry is all around us!
Hopefully you’ve learned a few
cool new facts to impress your friends, family and love interests.