Telemetry Variable Naming Guidelines

A guide to standardize the way we refer to flight telemetry variables.

Decreasing Broadness (Work In Progress)

Variable names should be fully descriptive, regardless of scope, and have decreasing broadness. As in the first word should be the most broad descriptor, followed by a less broad descriptor, etc., until the variable is fully defined. If variables are arranged in alphabetical order the order should be grouping similar variables.

Sometimes level of broadness between descriptors is interchangeable. If so, just be consistent with the rest of the project. As a standard for telemetry variables, order in data source, direction or property, derivative. Derivatives should be shortened to pos, vel, acl, jrk, snp, ckl, pop in all cases.

[data source][Derivative][Direction]

Do’s:

setpointPosX, kalmanVelRoll, BAROMETER_POS_ALT, kalmanAclX, UTILIZATION_CPU_0.

Don’t’s:

xPosition, CPU_0_UTILIZATION.