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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,...
Staying true to Moore's law, portable computing devices have become exceedingly capable of increasing their intended possibilities and applications. Evidence of this can be seen in the quantity and variety of applications ranging from Language Translators, GPS applications, and Image editing, to wireless control of external hardware. The demand has been so great that even the U.S Military has shown...
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...
Test forensics is a systematic approach for evaluating execution results of a Unit Under Test (UUT) over a broad set of criterion. Execution results include the traditional test numbers, measured values and limits, but also include timing relationships and configuration information about the UUT and Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) used while conducting the test. Occasionally a test may pass on station...
Analysis of digitized waveforms requires an understanding of the limitations of the acquisition hardware, an understanding of how digital sampling interacts with the waveform shape, and an understanding of how the desired measurements are influenced by the sampling operation. By paying attention to these considerations and following some general guidelines an acquisition system can be tuned to get...
During the last four decades the number of Automated Test Systems (ATS) has experienced tremendous growth at Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD). This is characterized in the proliferation through Base Realignment and Closure acquisition and in-house development of a wide variety of general and special purpose ATS - to date there are 94 unique ATS and a total of 230 ATS. With advancing technology and increasingly...
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...
Linux®-based ATEs are susceptible to obsolescence due to quickly changing kernel versions and varying distribution support between hardware and software vendors. This paper explains how virtualization technology can help mitigate the risk of obsolescence and reduce maintenance costs in Linux-based ATEs by running multiple operating systems simultaneously on one controller.
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...
This paper proposes the experiments and setups for studying diagnosis and prognosis of electrolytic capacitors in DC-DC power converters. Electrolytic capacitors and power MOS-FET's have higher failure rates than other components in DC-DC converter systems. Currently, our work focuses on experimental analysis and modeling electrolytic capacitors degradation and its effects on the output of DC-DC converter...
Throughput demands and cost-down pressures involved with modern functional testing necessitate a trend towards a parallel test paradigm. Parallel test techniques can be employed by test engineers to overcome these challenges. The benefits of conducting tests on multiple units/subsystems concurrently are to maximize instrumentation utilization, increase throughput and reduce execution time. This paper...
The increasing difficultly of developing modern test systems is compounded by shortened development times and exponentially more complex devices under test. The fundamental need for connectivity to a wide variety of hardware has not changed, but test engineers often find themselves building systems without the final hardware and without access to the actual device that will be tested. This need for...
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,...
How to identify when a static pattern digital test program should be re-hosted as a dynamic pattern set on the state-of-the-art ATE is complicated. However, there are critical issues that should be evaluated when making this decision. Issues include chip models, timing parameters, drive strength, logic levels, circuit complexity, I/O pins, automated diagnostics, portability, reuse, speed, optimal...
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...
We need to focus on the exact cause of failure and perform prognostics during the test and repair cycle. Technology must change for test/diagnosis. With the advent of more robust microcircuits we need to think outside the box when if comes to testing. If we continue to perform diagnostics in the same manner, without considering other testing philosophies, we will continue to waste time and resources.
Today's fast paced world of ever changing Commercial-Of-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and software architectures creates a quandary in that the end-user must be cognizant of these effects on their own legacy based system when embracing a new design. The advantages of moving to a newer and sleeker system surely outweigh the complexities of attempting to maintain an older system especially when obsolescence...
With virtual instrumentation and graphical system design, the application requirements ultimately dictate the shape and form of the structural test and monitoring system. Virtual instrumentation offers more complete, more capable, and lower cost structural test and monitoring systems. This paper will provide an architectural view of modern structural test and monitoring systems, diving into both COTS...
Over the past few decades, the ANSI C language has become one of the most popular test and measurement programming languages due to its power and flexibility. ANSI C applications can be optimized for improved performance because of the developer's ability to have low level control through direct access to memory and hardware specific function calls. Although the ANSI C language provides low level...
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