Trimaran hullform demonstrator high speed data acquisition system

The Research Vessel (R/V) Triton is a trimaran hullform prototype being built and evaluated by the Royal Navy with technical support from the United States Navy. This paper provides a synopsis, development approach, and key specifics of the Trials Instrumentation System (TIS), a highly flexible, distributed, data acquisition system. It highlights the many capabilities and features of the TIS and its Ethernet network, provides descriptions of the system architecture and interconnections, and presents an overview of the software which operates the TIS and the application software which has been tailored for the trials of the R/V Triton.