Improved Diagnostic Capabilities of Avionic Systems Containing Boundary Scan Technology Navy SBIR FY2012.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2012.1 Topic No.: N121-021 Topic Title: Improved Diagnostic Capabilities of Avionic Systems Containing Boundary Scan Technology Proposal No.: N121-021-0326 Firm: A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. 8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 110-779 Los Angeles, California 90045-3631 Contact: Louis Ungar Phone: (310) 822-5231 Web Site: www.BestTest.com Abstract: The objective of this project is to exploit the boundary scan technology that resides within modern military electronics in order to improve the item's diagnostic capability. Boundary scan technology was designed to improve the testability and diagnosability of electronics. Its use, however, has been primarily focused on finding manufacturing faults, such as shorts, opens, missing and dead components. Tools are also geared for manufacturing tests. Predominant failure modes in US Navy fielded units are usually caused by non-catastrophic and out of tolerance conditions and these are different than production defects. Boundary scan, however achieves testability by facilitating different configurations than the normal operational one. Special test configurations can improve diagnosability as well, though to date only the testability aspects have been utilized. We show how diagnosability is improved with existing standardized IEEE-1149.1 features, like SAMPLE and EXTEST. We also propose novel uses of boundary scan to augment BIT and further reduce diagnostic complications. These new instructions will further improve diagnosability without requiring circuit design or even test programming changes. They will, instead, involve the manipulation of boundary scan data to configure the system under test to increasingly more diagnosable configurations. We propose developing user friendly software that implements diagnostician commands and performs the cumbersome boundary scan data manipulations needed to achieve reconfigurations. Improvements will allow fault isolation to a single WRA in nearly 100% of the cases. They will also help other diagnostic complications, such as cannot duplicates, retest OK, no fault found, erroneous fault isolation and false alarms. Benefits: The benefits that will be gained from this effort will be apparent in more accurate diagnostics and lower cost of support. Presently, fault isolation to a single Weapons Replaceable Assembly (WRA) can typically be achieved in 80% to 90% of the cases. That means that in 10% to 20% of the cases when a failure is found at least 2 (and perhaps more) WRAs are removed, even though only one WRA is acually faulty. So for every 100 failure indications 20 extra WRAs need to be switched out of the system. The result is extra repair times, extra spares needed, and extra time the system is down. If one of the WRAs called out is not available as a spare, more time is needed to procure it and the system may be down for the duration. Additionally, the cost of WRAs sent to Intermediate and Depot Level repairs is increased as two units are sent to these stages instead of one. The fault free WRA sent back to Intermediate or Depot Level may actually undergo longer and more intrusive testing as it is considered a Retest OK. The main benefit from our proposed approach is that fault isolation is improved. Increasing fault isolation to a single WRA in (nearly) 100% of the cases eliminates the extra cost factors discussed above. The difference between fault isolation to a single WRA in 100% of the cases vs. only 80% of the cases will save millions of dollars for the US Navy. Similar cost differences can be experienced in other branches of the military. Commercial applications include automobile (electronics) repair, medical systems, factory manufacturing, and telecommunications facilities. Diagnoses to a single WRA in each of these cases will save millions of dollars in futile and costly repairs. This concept also saves in other diagnostic complications, such as Retest OK, cannot duplicates, false removals and false alarms. Return