Automatic Test Equipment Research Articles

INFORMATION RELIABILITY ENHANCEMENT METHODS

Information reliability is the property of information to reflect real-world objects with the necessary accuracy. The reliability of information is an essential characteristic of any communication system. It is found that in modern network architectures of test automation systems, the main problem in the field of enhancement of the reliability of information is the creation of methods aimed at solving the problem of enhancing the reliability for «real» time systems.

A Low-Power Wearable E-Nose System Based on a Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (CMUT) Array for Indoor VOC Monitoring

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are pervasive in the environment and their real-time continuous monitoring can facilitate better understanding of their effects on human health by combining environmental factors with physiological conditions. The scope of wearable sensors for detection of VOCs is evident as the accuracy of the sensor prediction depends on its proximity to the VOC source along with the sensitivity and selectivity of the sensor itself. In this paper, we present a low-power wearable e-nose system based on a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array. CMUTs offer inherent benefits of excellent mass resolution, easy array fabrication, and integration with electronics, which make them an appropriate choice as a transducer element for gravimetric e-nose systems. A 5-channel CMUT sensor array was chemically functionalized and used for the detection of four volatiles, ethanol, toluene, p-xylene, and styrene. All the channels of the sensor array achieved a resolution below 10 ppm within 0.2–3% of OSHA-PEL time-weighted average (TWA) for each volatile. For each test cycle, the maximum frequency shift, the rate of adsorption, and the rate of desorption were extracted as features. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was applied to visualize the discrimination performance of the sensor array. The system performance was characterized using an automated testing system. The presented sensor system can be used for identification of volatiles with suitable pattern-recognition techniques.

Trusted GNSS-Based Time Synchronization for Industry 4.0 Applications

The protection of satellite-derived timing information is becoming a fundamental requirement in Industry 4.0 applications, as well as in a growing number of critical infrastructures. All the industrial systems where several nodes or devices communicate and/or coordinate their functionalities by means of a communication network need accurate, reliable and trusted time synchronization. For instance, the correct operation of automation and control systems, measurement and automatic test systems, power generation, transmission, and distribution typically require a sub-microsecond time accuracy. This paper analyses the main attack vectors and stresses the need for software integrity control at network nodes of Industry 4.0 applications to complement existing security solutions that focus on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio-frequency spectrum and Precision Time Protocol (PTP), also known as IEEE-1588. A real implementation of a Software Integrity Architecture in accordance with Trusted Computing principles concludes the work, together with the presentation of promising results obtained with a flexible and reconfigurable testbed for hands-on activities.

Test Temperature Calibration Using Inertial MEMS Voltage-Temperature Characteristics for ATE Setup

In the chip-scale package final test, temperature is one of the main components as this is also indicated on once specification on electrical parameters that are temperature sensitive especially for inertial Micro-Electro- Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometers. The voltagetemperature relationship of an accelerometer has been presented and used to calibrate test temperature on Automated Test Equipment (ATE) setup. Bench reference data of a set of units were gathered to correlate with the Device under Test (DUT) temperature with the raw ATE handler test temperature using linear regression. Offset test temperature or the temperature error was calculated across all sites to adjust the new ATE handler test temperature. After which, the correlation between the bench reference data and the gathered ATE data of the 20 golden units from two test flows with 2.3 seconds and 200 milliseconds respectively both with 4-site enabled testing was validated that all DUT temperature is within acceptable temperature window of +/- 3°C, also less standard deviation for longer test time by only 0.0011 and all 20 golden units passed for both test flows. Lastly, the comparison of the newly calibrated test handler using the voltage-temperature relationship which had 0.0011, 0.0011, and 0.0012 SD of data, and the static calibrated test handlers which had 0.0057, 0.0078, and 0.010 SD of data for each lot 1, 2, and 3 respectively show up to 8x improvement in SD of the DUT temperature in ATE.

Application of time-domain gating technique in water content measurement of gas-liquid two-phase flow.

This paper introduces an application of the time-domain gating technique in water content measurement of gas-liquid two-phase flow. According to the principle that water and gas have different absorption effects on microwaves, a sensor with transmitting and receiving antennas is designed. Combined with the back propagation neural network, the water content of two-phase fluids can be obtained from the complex transmission coefficient (S21) of antennas. In order to reduce the influence of the sensor structure on antenna measurement, the time-domain gating technique can be used to filter out the interference components in S21 so that the water content can be more easily predicted. Built on the above, an automatic test system is established. In the range of 0%-78%, the absolute test error of the water content is lower than 3%.

Total Ionizing Dose Effect and Failure Mechanism of Digital Signal Processor

Ionizing radiation effect and failure mechanism of Digital signal processor (DSP) is studied through test-board and automatic test equipment to find the relationship between system function failure and parameter degradation. Static bias is more sensitive than dynamic bias when DSP is tested on-line during radiation. Core current, high-Z leakage current and timing parameter are sensitive to ionizing radiation. No enhanced low-dose-rate sensitivity is found by comparing experiment results under high and low dose rate radiation. External memory interface and Timer are deduced to be the sensitive module by step radiation and analysis basing full parameter test in Verigy 93000. The timing parameter degradation have a strong correlation to these module functions. And the degeneration mechanism is analysed on inverter through Hspice simulation which indicate the leakage circuit caused by radiation can lead a delay to the digital signal propagating. The parasitical capacitance among long connections make it worse to the data transmission around DSP, field programmable gate array and memory. Then an early function failure occurs in test board than Verigy 93000. This work provide support to systematic radiation hardness design and hardness assurance/lot acceptance testing in space applications.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: The design and experiment of peanut high-throughput automatic seed testing system based on machine learning

This article has been retracted from publication in the Taylor & Francis journal, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science. Following publication, concerns were raised by multiple third-parties around the content of the special issue and the decision-making process. Following an investigation by the Taylor & Francis Publishing Ethics & Integrity team in full cooperation with the Editor-in-Chief, it was confirmed that this article included in Special Issue titled “ Envisage Computer Modelling and Statistics for Agriculture”, guest edited by Gunasekaran Manogaran was not peer-reviewed appropriately, in line with the Journal's peer review standards and policy. As the stringency of the peer review process is core to the integrity of the publication process, the Editor and Publisher have decided to retract all of the articles within the above-named Special Issue. The journal has not confirmed if the authors were aware of this compromised peer review process. The journal is committed to correcting the scientific record and will fully cooperate with any institutional investigations into this matter. The authors have been informed of this decision. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines.

Rapid molecular detection of pathogenic microorganisms and antimicrobial resistance markers in blood cultures: evaluation and utility of the next-generation FilmArray Blood Culture Identification 2 panel

Rapid detection of pathogens causing bloodstream infections (BSI) directly from positive blood cultures is of highest importance in order to enable an adequate and timely antimicrobial therapy. In this study, the utility and performance of a recently launched next-generation fully automated test system, the Biofire FilmArray® Blood Culture Identification 2 (BCID2) panel, was evaluated using a set of 103 well-characterized microbial isolates including 29 antimicrobial resistance genes and 80 signal-positive and 23 signal-negative clinical blood culture samples. The results were compared to culture-based reference methods, MALDI-TOF, and/or 16S rDNA sequencing. Of the clinical blood culture samples, 68 were monomicrobial (85.0%) and 12 polymicrobial (15.0%). Six samples contained ESBL (blaCTX-M), two MRSA (mecA), and three MRSE (mecA) isolates. In overall, the FilmArray BCID2 panel detected well on-panel targets and resistance markers from mono- and polymicrobial samples. However, one Klebsiella aerogenes and one Bacteroides ovatus were undetected, and the assay falsely reported one Shigella flexneri as Escherichia coli. Hence, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting microbial species were 98.8% (95%CI, 95.8–99.9%) and 99.9% (95%CI, 99.8–99.9%), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity for detecting of resistance gene markers were 100%. The results were available within 70 min from signal-positive blood cultures with minimal hands-on time. In conclusion, the BCID2 test allows reliable and simplified detection of a vast variety of clinically relevant microbes causing BSI and the most common antimicrobial resistance markers present among these isolates.

Automatic Test System of the Back-End Card for the JUNO Experiment

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a medium-baseline neutrino experiment under construction in China, with the goal to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. The JUNO electronics readout system consists of an underwater front-end electronics system and an outside-water back-end electronics system. These two parts are connected by 100-meter Ethernet cables and power cables. The back-end card (BEC) is the part of the JUNO electronics readout system used to link the underwater boxes to the trigger system is connected to transmit the system clock and triggered signals. Each BEC is connected to 48 underwater boxes, and in total around 150 BECs are needed. It is essential to verify the physical layer links before applying real connection with the underwater system. Therefore, our goal is to build an automatic test system to check the physical link performance. The test system is based on a custom designed FPGA board, in order to make the design general, only JTAG is used as the interface to the PC. The system can generate and check different data pattern at different speeds for 96 channels simultaneously. The test results of 1024 continuously clock cycles are automatically uploaded to PC periodically. We describe the setup of the automatic test system of the BEC and present the latest test results.

GaN 8Gbps High-Speed Relay MMIC for Automated Test Equipment

GaN 8Gbps High-Speed Relay MMIC for Automated Test Equipment

Hydraulic pump automatic test system based on C/S structure

In order to meet the automation production and testing needs of modern enterprises, this paper takes the hydraulic vane pump test bench as an example, and builds a set of hydraulic automatic measurement and control system based on C/S framework, which can meet the requirements of single/double pump test simultaneously. Among them, the client software is developed based on LabVIEW, the server is built based on FTP protocol and MYSQL database, and the test bench is successfully connected to the internal production management system of the enterprise through the local area network, realizing the integration of product model management, process control, automatic testing, result uploading and other functions. At the same time, the PID closed-loop control strategy was improved in the acceleration and loading stages to shorten the test time and reduce the system overshoot. Finally, the automatic run-in, efficiency verification and low-speed pressure-holding test of vane pump have been completed.

Compliance method to measure crack length and crack closure for automated fatigue crack propagation test of nanocrystalline nickel film

Experimental techniques for measuring the crack length and crack closure behavior of single edge crack tension [SE(T)] specimens with fixed ends were developed with compliance method employing a high-resolution laser displacement meter together with data processing for noise elimination. Then, an automatic force-shedding fatigue crack propagation test system was developed. Using this system, we measured the crack length and crack closure behavior of thin films with a thickness of 5 or 10 µm and width of 10 mm, with which the accuracy of crack length measurement was better than 0.46 mm. The crack closure behavior could also be identified by the compliance method. The relationship between the crack propagation rate da/dN and the stress intensity factor range ΔK for nanocrystalline (NC) and ultrafine-grained (UFG) thin film was independent of the force ratio, and the relationship for the 10 µm-thick film was almost identical to that for the 5 µm thick film. No crack closure was observed in the UFG and NC thin films, whereas it occurred in the medium-size-grained (MG) thin film. The da/dN–ΔKeff relationships for thin films were independent of the force ratio and film thickness. In the Paris law region, da/dN for the MG film was higher than that for an MG plate at comparable ΔKeff, showing that crack closure could not account for the thickness effect. However, no difference in ΔKeff,th was observed for both the MG film and the MG plate. In the Paris law region (Region B), no effect of grain size on the da/dN–ΔK relationship was observed for the 10-µm-thick film; however, the crack propagation rate was higher for a film with smaller grain size and thickness from 100 to 180 µm. For NC and UFG films, the crack propagation rate of the 100-µm-thick film was higher than that of the 10-µm-thick film, but it was almost identical for MG films; however, the rate for a thin film was higher than that for a bulk plate. The threshold stress intensity factor range was always lower for a film with smaller grain size.

Assessment of Health Monitoring Trustworthiness of Avionics Systems

The article provides a methodology for assessing the trustworthiness of health monitoring the dismounted avionics systems with automated test equipment (ATE). The indicators include the probabilities of false-positive, false-negative, true-positive, and true-negative. For the first time, we introduced into consideration the instability of the source of stimulus signal (SSS), the random and systematic component of the measuring channel error, and the reliability characteristics of the systems themselves. We consider a specific case of an exponential distribution of permanent failures and intermittent faults and derive formulas for calculating the trustworthiness indicators. Numerical calculations illustrate how the probabilities of correct and incorrect decisions depend on accuracy parameters. We show that the probabilities of false-positive and false-negative increase much faster than the probabilities of true-positive and true-negative decrease when the standard deviation of stimulus signal increases. For a Very High-Frequency Omni-Directional Range (VOR) receiver, we demonstrate that even with a zero random error generated by the source of the stimulus signal, the probabilities of false-positive and false-negative are different from zero.

Enhancement of Biogas Production via Co-Digestion of Wastewater Treatment Sewage Sludge and Brewery Spent Grain: Physicochemical Characterization and Microbial Community

The present study intends to evaluate a synergy towards enhanced biogas production by co-digesting municipal sewage sludge (SS) with brewery spent grain (BSG). To execute this, physicochemical and metagenomics analysis was conducted on the sewage sludge substrate. The automatic methane potential test system II (AMPTS II) biochemical methane potential (BMP) batch setup was operated at 35 ± 5 °C, pH range of 6.5–7.5 for 30 days’ digestion time on AMPTS II and 150 days on semi-continuous setup, where the organic loading rate (OLR) was guided by pH and the volatile fatty acids to total alkalinity (VFA/TA) ratio. Metagenomics analysis revealed that Proteobacteria was the most abundant phyla, consisting of hydrolytic and fermentative bacteria. The archaea community of hydrogenotrophic methanogen genus was enriched by methanogens. The highest BMP was obtained with co-digestion of SS and BSG, and 9.65 g/kg of VS. This not only increased biogas production by 104% but also accelerated the biodegradation of organic matters. However, a significant reduction in the biogas yield, from 10.23 NL/day to 2.02 NL/day, was observed in a semi-continuous process. As such, it can be concluded that different species in different types of sludge can synergistically enhance the production of biogas. However, the operating conditions should be optimized and monitored at all times. The anaerobic co-digestion of SS and BSG might be considered as a cost-effective solution that could contribute to the energy self-efficiency of wastewater treatment works (WWTWs) and sustainable waste management. It is recommended to upscale co-digestion of the feed for the pilot biogas plant. This will also go a long way in curtailing and minimizing the impacts of sludge disposal in the environment.

Application areas of modern automated methods of anti-Müllerian hormone evaluation

Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMН) is a glycopeptide of the transforming growth factors β-family, used in many medical fields. Understanding of the biological role of AMH at norm and at pathology such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is expanding. This review includes the literature analysis on the synthesis and biological role of AMH in women and men; factors influencing its level; possibilities and limitations of clinical use of AMH in pediatric endocrinology/urogynecology, reproductive medicine, diagnosis of PCOS and other dyshormonal conditions, oncofertility programs and diagnosis of genital tumors.Effects of AMH in women: inhibiting the entry of primordial follicles into growth, control of follicle sensitivity to follicle-stimulating hormone, participation in the selection of the dominantfollicle, inhibition of aromatase activity in granulosa cells of the follicle, regulation of the gonadotropic generator of gonadotropic releasing hormone.AMH is an important component of predicting the response to ovulation stimulation in infertile women, diagnosis of nonclassical forms of PCOS, premature ovarian failure to the developmentof amenorrhea, other hormonal diseases, granulosa cell tumors, decisions about the possibility of maintaining reproductive function after cancer treatment. Currently, AMH cannot be used asa tool for individualized prediction of the age of menopause, fertility. It is not recommended to decide on the use of cryotechnologies based only on the AMH level.Evolution of laboratory estimation of АМН as an important factor of impact on clinical and scientific application of research is also considered. Despite significant improvements in thetechnical characteristics of test systems for determining the AMH level, there are limitations in the use of this diagnostic marker due to the lack of standardization. This shortcoming can beovercome by following principles: do not base important clinical decisions only at the AMH level, and use this indicator in conjunction with other laboratory parameters and clinical data;adhere to the consistent use of one automated test system until the introduction of the standard in laboratory practice.

Spline‐Based Drift Analysis for the Reliability of Semiconductor Devices

AbstractDesign and production of semiconductor devices for the automotive industry are characterized by high reliability requirements, such that the proper functioning of such devices is ensured over their whole lifetime. Manufacturers subject their products to extensive testing, such as high‐temperature operating life (HTOL) tests that simulate the tough requirements products have to withstand. In the present study, the drift behavior of a representative electrical parameter under HTOL stress conditions is modeled, using linear splines, and a model for the determination of test limits used to ensure reliability is formulated. These test limits are computed such that for a predefined probability the electrical parameters under consideration remain within their specification limits over the whole product lifetime. Additionally, the yield loss that might be caused by this quality control procedure should be kept as small as possible. These test limits can then be used by automated test equipment to detect conforming and non‐conforming devices immediately after production. Extensive numerical simulations are conducted in order to demonstrate the performance of this model under a wide set of different scenarios for inter‐ and intra‐device variabilities.

Magic Touch

OptoFidelity’s automated test system for touch and haptics performance measurement ensures high accuracy and repeatability in touch-enabled products

Comparison of two gas volume measurement systems by evaluating biochemical methane potential

AbstractThe objective of this study is to compare and analyze the efficiency of an automated measurement system for biogas flow with a control performed by a programmable logic controller (PLC) called the SAMB compared to commercial equipment widely disseminated for this purpose, the automatic methane potential test system (AMPTS II). The objective is to identify the accuracy in gas flow analysis of the two systems. The experiments were conducted in triplicate at a constant temperature of 37°C in anaerobic reactors. Two synthetic substrates and two natural substrates combined with a microbial inoculum were used. Considering the different ways the two systems capture data, the results show that all samples differed statistically between them (p < 0.01) in each system. However, in relation to paired substrates between systems, the samples did not present statistically significant differences (p > 0.05). Thus, with the advancement and globalization of knowledge, it is necessary to develop systems capable of generating standardized, precise, and accurate data. In this context, the systems evaluated here present different forms of methane measurement but the results have no significant statistical differences.

The Performance Evaluation on Co-Digestion of Domestic Sewage Sludge and Food Waste for Methane Yield and Kinetics Analysis

Sewage sludge and food waste; are organic wastes suitable for the anaerobic digestion. However, the digestion of sewage sludge and food waste as solely substrate is having a drawback in term of methane yield. Therefore, many researchers combined these two wastes as a co-substrate and used in co-digestion. This study focused to evaluate the anaerobic co-digestion of domestic sewage sludge (in form of primary and secondary sewage sludge) with food waste under mesophilic temperature in a batch assay. Two series of batch biochemical methane potential (BMP) test were conducted using the Automatic Methane Potential Test System (AMPTS II). Each set are labelled with BMP 1(PSS:FW) and BMP 2 (SSS:FW). The BMP tests were monitored automatically until the methane production is insignificant. Using the data observed in the laboratory, the kinetic paremeters were calculated. Also, the First-order and Modified Gompertz modeling were included to predict the anaerobic digestion performance. Finding showed that BMP 1(PSS:FW) have better performance with respect to the higher ultimate methane yield and methane production rate as compared to BMP 2 (SSS:FW). Besides, the kinetic parameters from laboratory work and modeling were slightly different. In which the kinetic paremetes from modelling is lesser. However, both modelling are well fitted to the experimental data with high correlation coefficient, R2 ranged from 0.993 to 0.997.

Resource and dependency based test case generation for RESTful Web services

Nowadays, RESTful web services are widely used for building enterprise applications. REST is not a protocol, but rather it defines a set of guidelines on how to design APIs to access and manipulate resources using HTTP over a network. In this paper, we propose an enhanced search-based method for automated system test generation for RESTful web services, by exploiting domain knowledge on the handling of HTTP resources. The proposed techniques use domain knowledge specific to RESTful web services and a set of effective templates to structure test actions (i.e., ordered sequences of HTTP calls) within an individual in the evolutionary search. The action templates are developed based on the semantics of HTTP methods and are used to manipulate the web services’ resources. In addition, we propose five novel sampling strategies with four sampling methods (i.e., resource-based sampling) for the test cases that can use one or more of these templates. The strategies are further supported with a set of new, specialized mutation operators (i.e., resource-based mutation) in the evolutionary search that take into account the use of these resources in the generated test cases. Moreover, we propose a novel dependency handling to detect possible dependencies among the resources in the tested applications. The resource-based sampling and mutations are then enhanced by exploiting the information of these detected dependencies. To evaluate our approach, we implemented it as an extension to the EvoMaster tool, and conducted an empirical study with two selected baselines on 7 open-source and 12 synthetic RESTful web services. Results show that our novel resource-based approach with dependency handling obtains a significant improvement in performance over the baselines, e.g., up to + 130.7% relative improvement (growing from + 27.9% to + 64.3%) on line coverage.