Automated Support System for the Development and Maintenance of TPSs

Automated Support System for the Development and Maintenance of TPSs
Navy SBIR FY2012.1

Sol No.:	Navy SBIR FY2012.1
Topic No.:	N121-027
Topic Title:	Automated Support System for the Development and Maintenance of TPSs
Proposal No.:	N121-027-1231
Firm:	Support Systems Associates, Inc. Marina Towers 709 S Harbor City Blvd Ste 350 Melbourne, Florida 32901-1942
Contact:	Joseph Stanco
Phone:	(732) 323-4520
Web Site:	http://www.ssai.org
Abstract:	Throughout government and industry there is currently no formal standard or method from which we can define, specify, or communicate and exchange testing requirements throughout a products life cycle. This lack of standards leads to reduced testing capability and is one of the primary drivers for the high cost of testing. These high costs ultimately lead to an inability to maintain support of current legacy systems as well as a reluctance to insert new technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our weapons systems. A number of recent initiatives have focused on developing a framework and standards needed to create open and agile net centric systems. An ATS framework in conjunction with its information interfaces and standards can afford the opportunity to achieve true plug and play functionality in a vendor neutral environment. This SBIR offers the opportunity to leverage off the existing efforts of the DoD ATS Framework Working Group (FWG) and supporting IEEE standards through the innovative application of breakthrough modeling techniques. These tools and techniques are intended to alleviate the difficulties arising from nonstandard test data, programming languages and varied test requirements. This is a key area that the DoD ATS FWG has identified We believe signal modeling is the most cost effective method of re-hosting legacy systems to provide efficiencies and is the focus of what this study will be about.
Benefits:	The commercial need for standards, libraries and modeling tools are prerequisite for addressing the requirements of test in complex electronic systems. Once a common modeling structure, standards and taxonomies are established, reusable libraries will evolve into supporting a broad variety of use cases. The broad aspect of commercial coverage includes not only DoD, but industries that rely on test, such as the automotive, telecommunications, aerospace and medical industries. A key factor in commercializing this technology is based on commercial standards from respected organizations such as IEEE that build upon the latest technology standards for information transfer and exchanges of data for automatic test systems (ATE). Perhaps the most significant feature of this modeling technique is that these tools will not produce propriety data but reusable data in accordance with the standards. The models describe the functions in a standardized fashion at the interface and need not reveal the proprietary nature of the implementation. The level of complexity can be such as to not expose intellectual property. Beyond ATE, model based programming techniques can be applied to enhance and expand the capabilities of more general purpose test platforms such as the AN/USM-674, Huntron Pro Track and the AN/USM-676, Pinpoint II electronic testers. Some areas the Navy can leverage are: 1) Advanced diagnostics methods (Reduce ambiguity groups) 2) Improved testing (Test quality) 3) Improved test methods (Functional and parametric) 4) Define interfaces to support integrated diagnostics 5) Improve maintenance actions 6) Advanced test libraries (signal based) 7) Reduction of cannot duplicate (CND) and re-test OK (RTOK) 8) Accommodate hard to test CCA (Mixed Signal, RF, and system on a chip (SOC) 9) Extend WRA and SRA life through test and reverse engineering 10) Perform cost effective analysis on repair, redesign or throw away decisions The application, design and use of reusable signal model libraries on existing testers will expand current tester capabilities. These capabilities apply directly to the AN/USM-676(V) in augmenting the test libraries. The scalability of PinPoint IIR into the PXI area will enhance the application of encapsulation of VISA/DLL drivers to support signal oriented methods. These applications can be integrated with Diagnosys's TestVue software. The application of these techniques improves the quality and capability of the test routine without requiring specific and unique instrument training by the user. The methodology, user interface and test libraries can also be used to establish expansion on the Huntron access DH. These approaches lend themselves well with the following Huntron tester capabilities: 1) In circuit power on, off 2) Signal insertion and sensing 3) Adding external instrumentation 4) DLLs for custom instrument as well as signal wrapper development 5) Invasive as well as non-invasive probing (contact/non-contact probing) 6) Advanced sensors (RF and broad band) The effective exchange and use of data and COTS tools will lead to improved diagnostics and reduction of ambiguity groups. The capability to record, store and accurately exchange functional/parametric test data for utilization in a timely manner allows utilization of standard software interfaces for maintenance information collection. This capability will allow SIMICA analysis to improve maintenance actions and cost effective analysis of repair, redesign or throw away decisions. The use of signal libraries in the effective testing of a large variety of CCA's can thereby expand the capabilities of the AN/USM-674 and AN/USM-676 to test more complicated boards. The tools and techniques allow for the encapsulation of circuit functions at the component level as well as the board (SRA) level based on system functions. This capability can further be used to effectively to replace obsolescent components and functions.

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