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There are over 60 .NET languages available today (including their variants) but C# (pronounced C-Sharp) is probably the most common and best suited for ATE instrument driver development. This article will explore the many advantages of using C# over other languages for ATE driver development including reflection, exception handling, threading techniques, auto-implemented properties, partial methods,...
The US Navy's Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS) family of testers is outfitted with three Ai-710 analog test instruments and provides 96 channels of analog test capability, enabling transition from a traditional serial to a parallel test approach. Most CASS test program sets do not take advantage of parallel test capability, which results in long runtimes. In this paper, the authors will...
Department of defense (DoD) maintenance depots face a growing challenge regarding legacy Automated Test Systems (ATS). These systems, which are critical to ensuring mission success, are increasingly difficult to maintain and repair as well as being costly to modernize or replace. According to the General Accounting Office, the DoD has estimated that they will spend billions of dollars to modernize...
Compact and robust automated testing and control solution for the F-15 Jet Fuel Starter and Central Gearbox assemblies utilizing the NI-cRIO family of instrumentation. System design and implementation being performed on a non-interference basis with the customer's current production schedule.
Modern day test and control systems are growing larger, more complex and more intricate. Most of these intricacies are in order to address new challenges such as the need for higher speed, higher channel-count data acquisition and generation and on-line data processing. These new test, measurement and control systems need to address these needs while still having to provide other features such as...
As embedded control devices become more common in today's electro-mechanical systems, HIL Simulation is growing in its importance to the success of these systems. HIL testing provides a simulated environment for the unit under test, simulating the parts of the system that are not physically present. As these systems grow in complexity, traditional HIL simulation techniques are falling short. Fortunately,...
Of all types of test applications, none require higher reliability, greater customization, more application-specific protocols and interfaces, and higher performance for more complete test coverage than military and aerospace test systems. These requirements often dictate custom hardware and HDL-based FPGA programming which drive higher costs, greater development time, more maintenance, and require...
The following topics are dealt with: test efficiency improvement; automatic testing; spectral and vector signal analysis; .NET framework; fault diagnosis; failure prognosis architecture; aircraft testing; system maintenance; digital instrumentation; system modernization; obsolescence; testing reliability; synthetic instrumentation; design testability; software standards and management; RF test; diagnostic...
The ATML family of standards have now been published through the IEEE and are beginning to be implemented in the test industry. This paper explores two of these ATML standards, the IEEE Std 1671.6 ATML Test Station Description and the IEEE Std 1671.5 ATML Test Adapter Description. These standards describe a test station and test adapter in an electronic format adhering to the XML standard. A description...
Spectrum measurements are essential to RF and microwave testing, and newer analyzers deliver better performance and speed. New “signal analyzers” also add vector capabilities such as precision demodulation and time domain analysis plus wideband waveform capture and playback. With built-in measurement applications the analyzers can streamline systems by making phase noise and noise figure measurements,...
This paper will describe the Integrated Process Team developed between the US Air Force VDATS program team and the Lockheed Martin LM-STAR team. Independently, both groups have designed a common ATS solution to reverse the excessive life cycle sustainment costs associated with the proliferation of unique test systems throughout their customer base. Both groups recognized the similarities in instrumentation,...
The art of test is being able to anticipate and replicate the stresses of a product's intended end use. This paper is an overview of a range of test options for wireless transmitter-receiver pairs; in particular those that will ultimately experience separation distance, or relative motion, thereby introducing a wide range of additional Radio Frequency (RF) effects, not typically found in indoor wireless...
Reconfigured Parallel Test Grid (RPTG) technology advanced a novel theory to improve test and ATE using efficiency. In order to analyze the function and efficiency of RPTG, it is important to simulate the RPTG environment authentically. Based on parallel and reconfigured characteristic of RPTG, HLA-based layered analytic simulation architecture was put forward. This solution can exploit the parallelism...
This paper examines the testing and production processes used on the CASS Phase II TPS Offload Program. The CASS Phase II TPS Offload program is a US Navy acquisition to replace legacy ATE Systems using CASS (Consolidated Automated Support System) Test Stations. This provides the Navy intermediate maintenance activities an effective tool for restoring “Ready For Issue” (RFI) status for over 450 aircraft...
Few industries suffer the budget and scheduling challenges caused by test instrument obsolescence as often and as severely as the military and aerospace industries. Often, the need for a given automated test system outlives the practical life of the original instruments as well as the expectation, interest, and even the availability of the original system developers. System readiness is increased...
High Performance digital subsystems have been developed over the years using a variety of proprietary and industry standard architectures such as GPIB and VXI. With the availability of high performance / high density FPGAs and analog electronics, the implementation of high performance digital functional test subsystems has now become a reality using the PXI architecture. The smaller form factor of...
System integration testing (SIT) is still relied upon for final confirmation of data link products. SIT, a costly process, is still required for most circuit card sub-assemblies because of the risk that lower level testing is either insufficient or incomplete. A description of production testing and debug is presented.
Particular problems can occur for frequency synthesizers under vibration and temperature. These effects will be outlined for providing margin to prevent failures. Phase noise, noise figure, and spectrum analysis tools are applied with vibration tables and thermal chambers. Particular focus is given to frequency synthesizers whose oscillators are most susceptible to environmental effects.
Advanced diagnostic reasoners are being developed to make use of Bayesian fault probability distributions, experiential learning algorithms and actual net centric historical failure data to change dynamically or optimize the testing sequence. What is not covered is how also to reconfigure dynamically the system or unit under test and the test equipment from its present state to the state required...
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