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By:
Menachem Blasberg
President, Inoxel Corporation
Companies and government had invested billions of dollars in the past five decades for test program sets (TPSs) that work with a single automatic test equipment (ATE). As many of these products are still in aircraft and other systems, they need to be supported for years and perhaps for decades to come. As the ATE’s instruments are no longer made or supported, the product’s support itself is in jeopardy. Changing out the legacy instrument for a newer model introduces sufficient differences in the TPS that it will likely not work any more. Altering the TPS is a daunting task, requiring a great deal of test engineering time and talent. In some instances, the effort equals (and may even exceed) the original TPS development effort. What can be done?
One approach that has been tried with some success is to reconfigure modern day instruments to act in “Form, Fit and Function (FFF)” exactly like the instrument they replace. If that can be successfully achieved, the TPS, drivers and other existing software can remain unchanged. The difficulty is achieving FFF. WinSoft’s WinTE 7000 Test Instrument Emulator was designed to accomplish this for a wide variety of legacy and modern instrument pairs.
The
figure on the linked page illustrates how WinTE 7000, combined with a new compatible test instrument, replaces a legacy instrument with a Form, Fit, and Function solution without modifying any existing software, drivers, or TPSs. WinTE 7000 was designed with a scalable architecture that enables the emulation of multiple and different test instruments simultaneously and the addition of more instruments over time.
WinSoft is shipping the WinTE 7000 with firmware modules that support emulating obsolete instruments when paired with a new instrument. A list of supported instruments pairs is included in the WinTE 7000 data sheet. If the old instrument is on the list, you simply replace the old instrument with a newer one on the list, and carry on as before; it is equivalent to replacing the old instrument with a spare one. If the old instrument is not on the list, WinSoft will develop the new embedded firmware needed to translate the old instruments’ instructions to the new instrument. Generally it is a 4-8 week process.
The use of an innovative architecture to translate instructions and maintain instrument’s original interface timing, makes WinTE 7000 a cost-effective choice for replacing obsolete instruments. The WinTE 7000 solution does not require any TPSs changes or verification, thus dramatically reducing the cost and time it takes to upgrade a legacy test system with new instruments. Because access to the existing legacy software is not required, WinTE 7000 works seamlessly with legacy programming languages such as ATLAS, HP-BASIC and FORTRAN and does not require an ATLAS translator, ATLAS migration, or TPS modification.
WinTE 7000 supports standard communication protocols such as GPIB, USB and TCP/IP, and widely used platforms such as Rack & Stack, PXI, and MMS modules. To provide prompt and timely product support, WinTE 7000 includes an embedded web server with built-in tools for remote diagnostics and debugging. WinTE 7000 is packaged in a small 1U-high 19-inch standard rack designed for space-saving applications.
Since its inception five years ago, WinTE 7000 has extended the life of many critical military test systems such as Trident test stations, F-15 testers, and various Navy radio testers. In addition to saving tens of millions of dollars by avoiding writing and validating hundreds of test program sets, WinTE 7000 users have experienced a dramatic reduction in downtime of the upgraded test stations. In one case, a customer who used WinTE 7000 to upgrade his test systems observed a reduction in downtime from 50 percent to less than two percent.
For many applications, WinTE 7000 is a solution straight out of the box, and for others it is only a few weeks away. The alternative of recreating TPSs to run on a new platform is far more risky and can take weeks and months of frustration. To get more information on this solution, visit
http://www.inoxel.com/instruments_Obsolescence_Solutions.aspx
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