Senior Instrumentation & Data Acquisition SME

DCS Corporation; Dayton (OH); On-site; USD 83,000 - 152,000; Part time

Job summary

ARCTOS a DCS company is seeking a part-time Senior Instrumentation and Data Acquisition SME to support the development, qualification, and flight testing of an instrumented structural panel.

This role requires senior technician-level expertise and extensive hands-on experience with aerospace flight-test instrumentation, sensor installation, signal conditioning, data acquisition systems, and environmental qualification testing.

Qualifications

• US citizenship is required.
• 10 years of experience with a Master's degree in mechanical or aeronautical engineering.
• Experience supporting hypersonic or high-speed flight test programs.
• Hands-on instrumentation for aerospace structures and flight hardware.
• Proficient in sensor installation, wiring, signal conditioning, and data acquisition.
• Knowledge of MIL-STD-810 and MIL-STD-461 standards.

Responsibilities

• Support development of the panel instrumentation and data acquisition approach, including sensor selection, placement, installation methods, wiring, signal conditioning, sampling requirements, and channel allocation.
• Provide hands-on technical expertise for installation and integration of instrumentation on structural panels and associated flight hardware.
• Support instrumentation including strain, temperature, static and dynamic pressure, acceleration/vibration, and other measurements.
• Support integration of instrumentation with vehicle data acquisition, power, telemetry, and onboard data-storage systems.
• Evaluate requirements against power, data acquisition channels, sampling rates, bandwidth, and onboard data-storage capacity.
• Develop and/or review instrumentation drawings, wiring diagrams, sensor installation procedures, calibration requirements, and checkout procedures.
• Assist with sensor calibration, end-to-end channel verification, troubleshooting, and data-quality assessment.
• Assist with environmental qualification and acceptance testing of the instrumented panel.
• Provide expertise for vibration, EMI/EMC, thermal, and other flight-environment qualification testing.
• Assess instrumentation performance before/during/after environmental testing to identify issues.
• Support ground testing, vehicle integration, pre-flight checkout, flight readiness activities.
• Provide recommendations to improve instrumentation reliability and data quality for future tests.

Skills

Aerospace instrumentation

Flight-test experience

Sensor installation

Data acquisition systems

Environmental qualification testing

Troubleshooting hardware

Vibration/EMI/EMC testing

System integration

Wiring and diagrams

Hands-on technician

Education

Master's degree in mechanical or aeronautical engineering

Tools

MIL-STD-810

MIL-STD-461

Job description

ARCTOS a DCS company is seeking a part-time Senior Instrumentation and Data Acquisition Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support the development, qualification, and flight testing of an instrumented structural panel. This position requires senior technician level expertise and extensive hands-on experience with aerospace flight-test instrumentation, sensor installation, signal conditioning, data acquisition systems, and environmental qualification testing.

The SME will work closely with structural, aerothermal, instrumentation, modeling, and engineers to translate measurement requirements into a reliable flight ready instrumentation system. The successful candidate should be comfortable working directly with test hardware and providing practical guidance on sensor installation, wiring, connectors, data acquisition architecture, system checkout, troubleshooting, and qualification testing.

Essential Job Functions:

• Support development of the panel instrumentation and data acquisition approach, including sensor selection, placement, installation methods, wiring, signal conditioning, sampling requirements, and channel allocation.
• Provide hands-on technical expertise for installation and integration of instrumentation on structural panels and associated flight hardware.
• Support instrumentation including strain, temperature, static and dynamic pressure, acceleration/vibration, and other measurements required to characterize the panel and its flight environment.
• Support integration of instrumentation with vehicle data acquisition, power, telemetry, and onboard data-storage systems.
• Evaluate instrumentation requirements against available power, data acquisition channels, sampling rates, bandwidth, and onboard data-storage capacity and support trades when vehicle resources are constrained.
• Develop and/or review instrumentation drawings, wiring diagrams, sensor installation procedures, channel lists, calibration requirements, and instrumentation checkout procedures.
• Support sensor calibration, end-to-end channel verification, troubleshooting, and data-quality assessment.
• Assist with planning and execution of environmental qualification and acceptance testing of the fully instrumented panel and associated instrumentation hardware.
• Provide expertise for vibration, shock, electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC), thermal, and other applicable flight-environment qualification testing.
• Assess instrumentation performance before, during, and following environmental testing to identify sensor, wiring, connector, mounting, or data acquisition issues.
• Support ground testing, vehicle integration, pre-flight checkout, flight-test readiness activities, and post-flight instrumentation assessment.
• Provide practical recommendations for improving instrumentation reliability, maintainability, and data quality for subsequent flight tests.

Required Skills:

• Due to the sensitivity of customer related requirements, U.S. Citizenship is required.
• 10 years of experience w/ a Master's degree in mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering or related engineering field.
• Experience supporting hypersonic, high-speed flight, missiles, launch vehicle, or other severe environment test programs.
• Experience instrumenting thin structural panels or structures subjected to combining aerodynamic, thermal, vibration, and acoustic environments.
• Familiarity with high temperature instrumentation and installation techniques.
• Experience with high channel count and/or high sample rate flight data acquisition systems.
• Experience with instrumentation systems constrained by vehicle power, bandwidth, telemetry, and onboard data-storage limitations.
• Familiarity with flight qualification standards and practices such as MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, or program-specific environmental qualification requirements.
• Experience supporting test readiness reviews, instrumentation readiness reviews, qualification testing, and flight readiness activities.
• Extensive experience as a senior-level aerospace instrumentation technician, instrumentation specialist, flight-test technician, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience instrumenting aerospace structures, flight vehicles, propulsion systems, or similarly demanding test articles.
• Strong experience with sensor installation, wiring, connectors, grounding/shielding, signal conditioning, calibration, and data acquisition systems.
• Experience with multiple sensor types such as strain gauges, thermocouples/temperature sensors, pressure transducers, accelerometers, and dynamic measurement systems.
• Demonstrated experience troubleshooting instrumentation and data acquisition problems at the hardware and system level.
• Experience supporting vibration and EMI/EMC qualification or acceptance testing of instrumented aerospace hardware.
• Understanding of environmental qualification practices applicable to flight hardware, including vibration, shock, thermal environments, EMI/EMC, and electrical/system-level checkout.
• Experience performing end-to-end instrumentation verification from the installed sensor through the data acquisition system.
• Ability to work effectively with engineering personnel while providing independent, experience-based recommendations regarding instrumentation implementation and flight readiness.
• Occasional travel is expected and will be performed under the guidelines of Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) and/or Joint Travel Regulations (JTR)