Giordano Automation has developed a software module which enables the communications between an ATLAS Test Program and the Diagnostician® called "MIDDLEMAN." The ATLAS Test Program must declare Middleman as a non-ATLAS module in the Preamble Section of the test program.
System calls such as process creation and deletion, sending and receiving signals between processes, file creation and deletion and also system calls to suspend and resume processes are fully automated implemented.
The test results are passed through an ASCII text file created by the TPS to the Diagnostician input port. The test results file is created by the test program. It contains all the pass/fail information required by the Diagnostician. The Middleman Module was developed with Government funds and is available as a Diagnostician ATE input mechanism at no charge.
The following is an example of excerpts of an ATLAS test program calling and using the Diagnostician for diagnostics on the Army's IFTE test system.
This approach to hosting the automated diagnostics module to test systems is generally applicable to all ATLAS based test systems in which the specific implementation of ATLAS allows the calling of a non-ATLAS module. It is useful in that it requires no change to the test system software.
Specific conventions that are used by the Operating System and the Test Executive are different from test system to test system, as test systems are all developed by different contractors and use different approaches. Modifications must be made to satisfy the unique conventions of the specific test system.
The F-15 Downsized Tester (DST) is a VXI-based test system driven by a PC controller that has recently been added to the Army IFTE DoD family and renamed Electronic System Test Set (ESTS). The DST is an LRU (box) level tester. The operating system is Interactive Unix. Unix sockets are used to provide communications between the Diagnostician and the ATLAS test program. The Diagnostician has been integrated into the DST as a library of diagnostic functions which are available to the test program as a non-ATLAS module. The library of functions allows the test programmer to select the most suitable use of the Diagnostician functions for the unit under test. The test programmer simply adds a "while" loop to pass test data to the Diagnostician, and after certain test modules, requests a snapshot of the current ambiguity group and identification of the test to best reduce the current ambiguity group. The Diagnostician will return the ATLAS module designation of the next best test to perform, which is subsequently executed by the test program. Issues such as stop on first failure versus running all go/no-go tests are dealt with in the context of what is best for the particular UUT. The Diagnostician is flexible enough to handle any test strategy.
The Teradyne L200 / L353 is a commercial test system which is commonly used in factory test environments. The tester is a functional tester with a strong digital test capability that can be augmented with a suite of analog instrumentation. Giordano Automation recently completed integration of the Diagnostician on the Teradyne L353 for an Aerospace factory application that will be transitioned to an Air Force Air Logistics Center for depot support. The Teradyne tester is controlled by a Vax workstation. The VMS operating system is augmented by extensive Teradyne software supporting test development and execution, including LASAR automatic test pattern generation and guided probe for digital fault isolation. Despite this strong suite of development and run-time software, no tools or support exists for fault isolation of analog UUTs or for the analog portion of hybrid UUTs. Giordano Automation's Diagnostician was identified as the only solution to fill this void. The Diagnostician has been seamlessly integrated into the Teradyne test environment of the L353. The Diagnostician is currently being used to provide fault isolation for analog portions of eight hybrid circuit card assemblies. The Diagnostician was ported to the VMS operating system as a library of diagnostic functions which are available to the test program using simple calls. VMS mailboxes are used to provide communications between the test program and the Diagnostician.
In this application, the system developer used the same CAD data as an input to both the Diagnostic Profiler as for the LASAR digital test pattern generation as well as for technical manual representationsof the units under test. This common starting ground saved dollars and time in the test development activity. The development of the eight UUT models used by the Diagnostician in run-time took an average of 2 and a half days each. The result was significantly less complex test programming - no diagnostic logic (If - Then and Go-To's) were incorporated in the test programs.
The Diagnostician can also be used to assist digital fault isolation in cases where complexity exceeds the capability of traditional digital modelling and digital test development tools.
The B-2 depot tester uses a similar Teradyne test system programmed in HP VEE.
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