Automated Test System for Test and Evaluation of C-Band Transmitter Packages for Geosat Spacecrafts

The aim of this paper is to develop an Automated Test System (ATS) for the Test and Evaluation of C-Band Transmitter packages for GEOSAT Space crafts using Virtual Instrumentation. Efficiency, coverage, quality and accuracy for the test and evaluation of Device Under Test (DUT) can be increased by Automated Testing. Minimizing the errors anticipated with manual intervention. Automated Test System using Virtual instrumentation (VI) combines rapid development software and modular, flexible hardware to create user-defined test systems. Here Modular PXI (Peripheral component interface Extensions for Instrumentation) instruments from National Instruments are used with NI-LabVIEW software for realizing the ATS. For characterizing the C-Band Transmitter, Spectrum analyzer & Digital Multimeter (DMM) is configured in PXI form-factor and the Power supply is controlled through GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) bus. The complete software is developed using NI LabVIEW which takes care of configuring the test condition and analyzing the DUT performance. The user friendly GUI well takes care of user interaction to the ATS.

Targeted Memory Test for Enhanced Diagnostic Fault Localization

A customized test resource has been created on Linux based automated test system to enhance and accelerate diagnostics and fault localization on random access memory. The resource, Targeted Memory Test, allows creation of a user defined sub-array which targets a specific area of a memory array. The resource includes a customized pattern set which can then be used with the unique Advanced Characterization shmoo plot routine to fully characterize any given failure mode. The sub-array patterns and characterization data can provide a clear understanding of the failure and reduce the time needed for both fault localization and physical failure analysis.