Automatic Test Equipment Research Articles

Methane Potential from the Digestion of Food Waste in a Batch Reactor

The anaerobic digestibility of a targeted substrate, measured as methane yield is conducted via biochemical methane potential (BMP). In this study, the batch BMP test was conducted using Automatic Methane Potential Test System (AMPTS II) for 25 days and focused on the methane production from the digestion of food waste (FW, in the form of raw and diluted) at inoculum to substrate ratio (I/S) ratio of 2:0 and under mesophilic temperature. The results showed that solids (TS and VS) concentration reduced significantly due to the dilution. The ultimate methane yields from the digestion of raw FW and diluted FW were 1891.91ml CH4/gVS and 1983.96 ml CH4/gVS respectively. This showed that the dilution significantly improved the methane yield. In addition, the lag phase of the methane yield curve for both BMP tests was less than one (1) day, showing the good biodegradability of FW. The kinetic methane production from laboratory data and Modified Gompertz modelling fitted well. However, the kinetic equation parameters such as Mo, Rm and l from the model were slightly lower based on the observation of the laboratory data.

Automated configuration of modern ATE

Modern Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) must perform many tasks to support testing of devices. The devices being tested may be anything from simple circuit cards to complex multi-device systems. In addition, they may employ analog, digital and / or radio frequency testing. This, coupled with the desire to test the devices as quickly as possible, can drive ATE systems to employ multiple systems with their own associated computers in order to perform complex testing in as short a time as possible. Another requirement of modern ATE is that they are able to be quickly repaired and be able to be configured quickly to perform their intended function. Since the platforms on which the tested equipment is installed cannot be used unless they are completely operational, the ATE used to test that equipment must be available to perform the testing. Additionally, it is often intended that the testing and repair tasks be performed by non-technical or semi-technical individuals. It is this last capability that can drive the desire to support the ability to perform automated installation and configuration of the ATE systems.

Digital radio frequency memory synthetic instrument enhancing US navy automated test equipment mission

This research project aims to expand the capability of a current US Navy Automated Test Equipment (ATE) family of testers known as the Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS). Industry research is now focused on breaking the historical construct of test equipment. Advances in the field of Synthetic Instruments have opened the door to test avionics in new ways. Every year new capabilities are developed using core hardware and increasingly capable software modules to create complex waveforms. This research creates a Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) Synthetic Instrument that can be programmed to perform a wide array of low latency Radio Frequency (RF) tests. Synthetic Instruments are defined as a concatenation of hardware and software modules used in combination to emulate a traditional piece of electronic instrumentation. This Synthetic Instrument couples high speed Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) to high speed Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC) with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) in between for digital signal processing. An RF front end is used to down convert the RF to baseband where it is sampled, modified, and up converted back to RF. The FPGA performs Digital Signal Processing (DSP) on the signal to achieve the desired output.

Cyber security for automatic test equipment

The initial focus for the cyber security community has been to make operating systems and networks more secure and harder to penetrate. These improvements are making it more difficult to exploit these systems, driving attackers to turn their attention to embedded systems and hardware exploitation. It is expected that new threats from improperly secured embedded operating systems, poorly defended firmware applications, and weak hardware communication protocols will be the next generation of attacks that have a high probability to significantly affect the maintenance community over the next few years. In essence, attackers will be viewing test equipment as the PC equivalent to USB devices. By exploiting trusted relationships in hardware systems, malware can be transported through the maintenance equipment, causing infection or misconfiguration of mission critical systems. These infections can spread to other parts of the weapons platform or potentially lay in wait until some predefined action occurs to expose itself and alter the intended mission or cause catastrophic damage to the weapons platform.

ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТЬ КОМПЛЕКСА ЛЕЧЕБНЫХ МЕРОПРИЯТИЙ ХРОНИЧЕСКОГО ГИНГИВИТА У ПАЦИЕНТОВ С ХРОНИЧЕСКИМ ГАСТРОДУОДЕНИТОМ

Subject. The article presents clinical, biochemical, immunological and microbiological results of a complex of therapeutic measures of chronic gingivitis in patients with chronic gastroduodenitis.
 The aim of the study was to study the effectiveness of treatment of chronic gingivitis in patients with chronic gastroduodenitis with the use of the proposed method.
 Methodology. The subject of the study was 155 persons aged 19 to 25 years with diagnosed chronic gingivitis and chronic gastroduodenitis, which were divided by stratified randomization into three groups: 1 group (primary) - 52 patients; 2 group (positive control) - 52 patients; Group 3 (negative control) - 51 patients. All groups were comparable in age (F = 2,355, p = 0,092) and sex (χ2 = 2,133, p = 0,334).
 To study the state of free radical oxidation, the method of chemiluminescence (CL) of the oral liquid was applied on the device HL-003. The quantitative and qualitative content of oral microflora was determined using nutrient media: CHROMagar Orientation, CHROMagar Candida (France). The concentration in the oral fluid of the intercellular adhesion molecules sICAM-1 was carried out on the automatic enzyme immunoassay analyzer Lazurit and test systems manufactured by Vector-Best CJSC (Russia) and eBioscience (Austria).
 Results. The use of the complex proposed by us significantly improved the parameters of the clinical examination (dental indices). In addition, the state of free-radical oxidation has normalized: at previously increased values of the light-emission sum (S) and its maximum value (I max), during the time of the study, their decrease occurred, while the lowered values - the increase to the level of normal values. The level of microorganisms of the orange and red complex decreased to normal levels, and the level of sICAM-1 also significantly decreased.
 Conclusions. The scheme of treatment of chronic gingivitis with the use of NUTRIEL with laminaria and tooth elixir with chlorophyll in patients with chronic gastroduodenitis led to an increase in the duration of remission compared with the traditional treatment regimen.

Research on Intelligent Fault Diagnosis of Portable ATE Based on Ontology

Aiming at the problems of low diagnostic efficiency and bad knowledge sharing of portable ATE (automatic test equipment), an intelligent fault diagnosis method based on ontology is put forward. Firstly, FMECA results of guiding system are regarded as knowledge source. The ontology model is constructed by OWL ontology description language to map between fault modes and fault causes. Then rule language S WRL is used to describe rules of ontology and build the relationship of classes, properties and instances. Finally, Racer reasoning engine is used for fault diagnosis, and fault diagnosis priority is received. Reasoning results show the priority of the most possible fault location and its weight in all of probable fault position. This method can solve the problems of difficulty of knowledge representation, lack of auto semantic reasoning of portable ATE effectively.

Database Programming under Labwindows/CVI Platform

LabWindows/CVI is one of the most commonly used automatic test system software development platforms. When developing automated test systems, a large amount of test data is often generated. How to implement effective test of a large amount of test data is a problem that is often encountered. In view of this, first introduced the relevant theory and background knowledge of database technology; then discussed how to use ODBC driver and SQL ToolKit software toolkit to operate Access database under CVI platform; Finally, a small program was taken as an example to introduce The specific code of the basic operation of the database is written under the CVI platform. The article provides a reference for the programming of the database under the CVI platform in the automatic test system.

Preliminary Exploration of Instrument Control Technology

Instrument control technology is a key technology for building large-scale automated test systems. In order to construct a large-scale automatic test system more efficiently, the method of interconnecting and interoperating between a computer and an instrument and between an instrument and an instrument when constructing a system is discussed. The common bus for controlling the instrument is introduced. The establishment of the communication link, the control method of the instrument and the selection of the development platform are analysed. The characteristics and application occasions of the two instrument drivers are compared. Finally, several development principles that should be paid attention to when implementing a large-scale automatic test system to realize instrument control are summarized, which provide references for instrument control in large-scale automatic test systems.

Automatic testing system to evaluate the energy efficiency of electric storage water heaters

Background: The energy efficiency of electric storage water heaters is a concern for enterprises and customers because it is beneficial for energy saving. To decrease the workload of testing personnel and improve the testing efficiency, an automatic testing system for evaluating the energy efficiency performance of electric storage water heaters has been designed. Methods: The complete testing system includes a water supply subsystem, hot water outlet subsystem, hardware subsystem, and software subsystem. An application program was developed using Visual Basic to acquire the sensor data and transmit it in real time to a database server. The energy efficiency evaluating process was controlled by the application software,by combining the data acquisition technology, communication technology, and program logical control technology. Results: The designed system can run automatically and achieve reliable tests, two important parameters including the standing loss per 24 h and the hot water withdrawal rate were obtained. Conclusion: This system can be applied to evaluate the energy efficiency grades of electric storage water heaters.

A High-Sensitivity MFL Method for Tiny Cracks in Bearing Rings

In order to detect tiny cracks in bearing rings, a high-sensitivity magnetic flux leakage (MFL) method based on magnetic induction head is proposed and investigated in this paper. First, the MFL sensing method based on magnetic induction head is theoretically illustrated. A magnetic core with an open gap is applied to guide leaked magnetic flux into a detection magnetic circuit, where an induction coil is placed to detect the change of the magnetic flux. To obtain an optimal gap width for higher sensitivity, its influence on MFL sensitivity is analyzed by building magnetic circuits. Then, to realize automatic inspection for bearing rings, a U-shape magnetizer is proposed and 3-D numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the signal characteristics of the proposed method and the sensitivity affected by gap width. Furthermore, MFL experiments for bearing rings were performed and it was found that the proposed method has high sensitivity for tiny cracks and when the gap width is approximately equal to the width of the crack, the greatest sensitivity will be obtained. Finally, the automatic MFL testing system for bearing rings is designed and employed in the production line. In-line tests show that the novel MFL system can fulfill the inspection requirement for bearing rings.

All-Digital Process-Variation-Calibrated Timing Generator for ATE With 1.95-ps Resolution and Maximum 1.2-GHz Test Rate

In this paper, an all-digital process-variation-calibrated high-performance timing generator for an automatic test equipment is proposed. The proposed timing generator generates process-variation-tolerant variable delays for high and wide-range testing clock frequency. In order to increase the testing clock frequency, a channel of the proposed timing generator consists of four subtiming generators operating in parallel. In addition, to improve process variation robustness, a precise eight-phase generator consisting of an accurate reference generator and a phase generator with dual-loop calibration (CAL) is proposed, and a phase error of less than 1.21° is achieved. Dynamic and static CAL techniques are also adopted in the edge vernier. A prototype chip having eight channels is fabricated using 0.13- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology. The proposed timing generator has an arbitrary test cycle frequency of up to 1.2 GHz, a timing resolution of 1.95 ps, a power consumption of 90 mW, and an area of 1.5 mm2.

Bioaugmentation of anaerobic digesters treating lignocellulosic feedstock by enriched microbial consortia.

Three different bioaugmentation cultures enriched from natural and engineered cellulolytic environments (cow and goat rumen, a biogas reactor digesting sorghum biomass) were compared for their enhancement potential on the anaerobic digestion of wheat straw. Methane yields were determined in batch tests using the Automatic Methane Potential Test System operated for 30 days under mesophilic conditions. All cultures had positive effects on substrate degradation, and higher methane yields were observed in the bioaugmented reactors compared to control reactors set up with standard inoculum. However, the level of enhancement differed according to the type of the enrichment culture. Methane yield in batch reactors augmented with 2% cow rumen derived enrichment culture was increased by only 6%. In contrast, reactors amended with 2% goat rumen derived enrichment culture or with the bioaugmentation culture obtained from the biogas reactor digesting sorghum biomass produced 27 and 20% more methane, respectively. The highest methane yield was recorded in reactors amended with 6% goat rumen derived enrichment culture, which represented an increase by 36%. The microbial communities were quite similar at the end of the batch tests independently of the bioaugmentation sources, indicating that the introduced microbial communities of the enrichment cultures did not dominate the reactors.

Position tracking control in torque mode for a robotic running foot for footwear testing

Available automatic footwear testing systems still lack flexibility and bio-fidelity to represent the human foot and reproduce the wear conditions accurately. The first part of this article introduces a new design of the robotic running foot for footwear testing using cable conduit mechanisms. This robotic running foot is integrated with an upper leg mechanism to form a complete integrated footwear testing system. The cable conduit mechanisms help remove the bulky actuators and transmissions out of the fast-moving robotic foot. Thus, this robotic running foot design not only allows high-power actuators to be installed, but also avoids a significant dynamic mass and inertia effects on the upper leg mechanism. This means that the integrated footwear testing system can have multiple powered degrees of freedom in the robotic running foot and simulate much higher human running speeds than other available systems. However, cable conduit mechanisms cause significant challenges in control approaches, especially in high-speed systems, due to their nonlinear transmission characteristics. Furthermore, the robotic running foot actuators must operate in a torque/force control mode to reproduce the foot–shoe interaction during gaits while it is critical to control the foot joints’ position in the swing phase of gaits. The latter part of this article presents a study on position tracking control in torque mode for the robotic running foot joints using adaptive and proportional–integral–derivative control designs to evaluate the system’s ability to mimic the human foot kinematics in running. Both controllers proved their effectiveness, implying that the proposed control approach can be implemented on the integrated footwear testing system to control the foot joints’ position in the swing phase of running gaits.

A High-Accuracy Programmable Pulse Generator With a 10-ps Timing Resolution

Automatic test equipment must have high-precision and low-power pulse generators (PGs) for testing memory and device-under-test ICs. This paper describes a high-accuracy and wide-data-rate-range PG with a 10-ps time resolution. The PG comprises an edge combiner (EC) and a multiphase clock generator (MPCG). The EC can produce an arbitrary waveform through 32 phase outputs of the MPCG. The EC adopts a one/zero detector and phase selection logic to define an operational data rate range and a timing resolution, respectively. Therefore, the EC uses the phase selection logic to combine the period window of the one/zero detector with the MPCG output phases. The EC also uses a countdown counter for a wide operational range. In the MPCG, a multiphase oscillator (MPO) adopts a ring oscillator scheme with subfeedback loops to extend its maximum operational frequency. The MPO also uses a phase error corrector to reduce the output phase error resulting from process and layout mismatches. Thus, the PG can obtain high-accuracy waveforms owing to small phase errors. The test chip was implemented using a 0.13- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process. The core area and power consumption of the PG were measured to be $250 \times 300 \,\,\mu \text{m}^{2}$ and 18.7 mW, respectively. The data rate range of the PG was determined to be from 3.2 kHz to 893 MHz. The time resolution and average accuracy of the PG were measured to be 10 ps and ±0.3 LSB, respectively.

Autobalancing Analog Front End for Full-Range Differential Capacitive Sensing

The authors here propose an analog interface for differential capacitance estimation, able to reveal and quantify capacitive variations. Different from other works in the literature, the proposed interface can operate on a full-range scale. This solution takes inspiration from a preliminary work of the same authors, whose working principle is based on a modified De-Sauty AC bridge configuration; in particular, two (differential) capacitors and two resistors are employed, one of which is implemented by a voltage-controlled resistor (VCR). In this paper, the electronic interface has been redesigned to obtain full-range operation and a linear input–output characteristic. The implemented autobalancing mechanism controls the VCR generating a reference voltage following the sensor output. Simulation results in two different circuit configurations performed by OrCAD PSpice have shown a very good agreement with a theoretical model implemented in MATLAB/Simulink environment. In addition, an evaluation of the goodness of the experimental measurements at steady and unsteady conditions is given. Experimental tests on a discrete-component prototype have been carried out using an automated test equipment including National Instruments tools and a dedicated software in the LabVIEW environment. Measurements have shown satisfactory results, the standard deviation being on the order of 0.01, in the worst case. The linearity error has been evaluated as well, resulting in lower than 1% full scale.

An Automated Test Equipment for Characterization of Emerging MRAM and RRAM Arrays

In this paper it is presented a test equipment for the characterization of two different emerging memory technologies like the Thermally Assisted Switching-Magnetic Random Access Memory (TAS-MRAM) and the Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM). The instrument is developed to allow a fast characterization of test array structures and can be potentially adapted for any other non-volatile memory generation. The hardware architecture is based on a PCI S5933 chipset being the local bus interface of a x86-PC that communicates with the units of the system like 14 bits/100 MHz arbitrary waveform generators and 12 bits/70 MHz programmable measurement units. A user-friendly software interface developed in LabVIEW has been implemented to allow large flexibility in changing the test parameters and a fast analysis of the test results. The instrument performance has been evaluated performing the typical non-volatile memory tests such as endurance and disturbs characterizations, running test flows up to 320 hours for MRAM devices and up to 6,137 hours for RRAM devices.

Digitally-Controlled Compensation Current Injection to ATE Power Supply for Emulation of Customer Environment

Mismatch of power supply integrity of power delivery network (PDN) between an automatic test equipment (ATE) and a customer board can lead to test failures such as overkills or underkills during semiconductor test. This paper proposes a technique to control the power supply impedance on an ATE using compensation current injection so that it emulates the impedance on a customer board. Digital filter is used to calculate compensation current waveform in real time in response to the measured power supply voltage fluctuation. Its implementation is based on the PDNs of both the ATE and the customer board. This paper introduces the filter implementation methodology for arbitrary PDN using nested-feedback loop of digital filter, as well as experimental results of prototype circuits. This paper demonstrates that with the proposed current injection the power supply voltage fluctuation waveform on the ATE matches up with that on the customer board, which means that the compensation current injection successfully controls and emulates the impedance. With the proposed technique test failures caused by the impedance difference between the two environments are reduced.

A study on Automatic field Test Equipment with improved maintenance and environmental reliability

A study on Automatic field Test Equipment with improved maintenance and environmental reliability

Automatic Hot-Test System for High Average/Continuous-Wave Power Gyro-TWTs

In this paper, an automatic hot-test system designed in developing high average/continuous-wave power gyrotron traveling-wave tube (gyro-TWT) is presented. The system framework and each subsystem including automatic data-acquisition module, antijamming data transmission module, data storage and analysis module, automatic control and protection module, and self-developed software are given in detail. Finally, an experimental example of 100-h-nonstop unattended hot-test experiments for a Ka-band gyro-TWT is given to verify the effectiveness of the automation test system.

A LabVIEW-based real-time acquisition system for crack detection in conductive materials

Large number of measurement techniques involves the scanning of a probe, while a physical quantity is measured. Data acquisition therefore requires high acquisition rates, together with an accurate synchronization between the probe control and the measurement. LabVIEW-based graphical programming language provides the flexibility of integration of data acquisition software/hardware for automated test and measurement applications using National Instruments (NI) high-speed data acquisition boards. This paper describes a new LabVIEW-Based automatic test system that can be used for eddy current testing (ECT) tests and measurements. The system deals with a pancake type coil, placed above a flat conductive plate with a crack. In order to achieve the crack detection, the probe scans the target and signals are collected by a NI data acquisition board. The software of the system has been developed using LabVIEW in order to realize the real time data acquisition of coil’s impedance. To verify the experimental results, simulations were performed using 3D finite element method. The system designed can be used for both education and specific research purposes.