August 2004
Today, engineers are challenged to develop
new, increasingly complex electronic products in an ever-shortening
product life cycle. As a result, engineers constantly search
for innovative ways of streamlining design to help them successfully
speed time-to-market and reduce costs. One area being examined
is test and measurement (T&M), where the widespread use
of customized software and hardware complicates the creation
of new test systems. It has the potential to lock users into
expensive, outdated technologies, architectures and software
that require engineers to remain proficient in multiple programming
environments. Traditional customized T&M-specific software
and I/O technologies contribute to test-system set-up that can
take days or weeks, delaying the introduction of new products
and reducing product revenues.
Agilent estimates over 90 percent of its T&M
customers are engineers connecting multiple instruments to a
PC, thereby building their own test "systems." Typically,
these engineers are adding to an existing test system rather
than starting from scratch, often with multivendor instruments
that use different software, input and output (I/O), and racking
technologies. Test system engineers typically spend one-third
of the time it takes to run a test in the initial test-system
set-up phase. Agilent research shows that shortening time-to-test
is critical for engineers whose primary concerns are the measurements
themselves and the portability of that information across the
organization.
Accelerating Test System Development through
Standardization
T&M engineers facing today's challenging
test requirements benefit from the adoption of open hardware
and software PC connected environments. Open software and connectivity
standards simplify the process of connecting and programming
test systems to help engineers design, validate and manufacture
electronic products. For example, open USB and LAN I/O standards
are faster, less expensive, simpler-to-use and more broadly
supported than proprietary technologies such as GPIB, which
was developed to simplify the connection of instruments to computers
before industry standard I/O were available. As PCs have become
the controller-of-choice for test systems, engineers in the
T&M industry have begun to experience firsthand the advantages
of using industry standard software and connectivity technologies
that are typically backed by significant investment that is
likely to eclipse any separate undertaking within the T&M
industry.
Agilent is the leader in introducing software
and hardware products that are compatible with industry-standard
programming and connectivity technologies to accelerate test
system design. Agilent system-ready test helps engineers develop
test systems without making large-scale changes to their hardware
infrastructure. System ready test enables engineers to easily
connect their instruments into a computer or network, and quickly
begin using those instruments within the software environment
they are most familiar with. Agilent system ready test includes:
- More than 130 system-ready instruments that integrate computer-based
interface standards such as I/O interface ports or COM-based
IVI-COM driver interfaces. USB and LAN ports are fast and
inexpensive, and Agilent also offers a variety of converters
from GPIB to USB or Ethernet to provide engineers with the
fastest, most transparent physical connectivity for their
instruments. The use of LAN also opens the door for direct
browser-driven control or data sharing across the enterprise.
In addition, IVI-COM drivers based on the Microsoftâ
Component Object Model allow language-independent access to
the functionality of system-ready instruments.
- The Agilent I/O Libraries Suite offers I/O libraries and
automated connection tools that help engineers establish error-free
connections in multi-vendor test systems in less than 15 minutes,
and create test programs in the development language they
choose.
- The Agilent T&M Programmers Toolkit provides specialized
T&M components that enable rapid test and measurement
application development within the Microsoft Visual Studioâ
.NET programming environment, including connecting to instruments
and engineering mathematical analysis.
- The Agilent Visual Engineering Environment (VEE) Pro intuitively
simplifies test system development, including measurement
and control, analysis, test-system and data-acquisition applications.
VEE Pro combines the resources of Microsoft Visual Studio
with the ease of a graphical programming language to enable
engineers who don't want to be computer scientists or programmers
to quickly develop new test systems using open standards.
Enhancements to the Agilent I/O Libraries
Suite and T&M Toolkit provide new automation tools that
further simplify and speed the process of developing test systems.
Simple, Fast Connections with Enhanced
I/O Libraries Suite
Agilent research reveals that test system
engineers typically connect two or more test instruments to
a PC. This stimulus/response or powering up a device under test
requires taking a reading and comparing it to a standard. This
can be a very time-consuming process that is complicated when
the instruments are from different vendors or use different
I/O and programming languages.
The Agilent I/O Libraries Suite 14.0 includes
new automatic detection tools that help test system designers
bypass the connectivity maze and establish error-free connections
in less than 15 minutes. The I/O Libraries Suite detects instruments
connected to a PC, configures the interfaces and verifies the
connection even in test systems that mix Ethernet/LAN, GPIB,
RS-232, USB and VXI instruments from multiple vendors. Using
the I/O Libraries Suite, companies are able to take advantage
of their hardware investments and use programming languages
they are familiar with to dramatically reduce the time, expense
and frustration associated with test-system development.
The Agilent I/O Libraries Suite 14.0 includes
extensive I/O libraries that connect with all commonly used
instrument- and PC-based I/O technologies. In addition, the
I/O Libraries Suite offers new features that help occasional
and expert users identify, explore and connect test instruments,
including:
- Agilent Connection Expert (CE) automatically discovers
connected instruments and configures interfaces for communication.
CE simultaneously manages all test-and-measurement standard
interfaces (GPIB, RS-232 and VXI), as well as computer-industry
standard interfaces (LAN and USB). CE includes a task guide
that helps both occasional and expert users through connection
tasks.
- The "smart defaults" feature automatically identifies
installation defaults based on the hardware configuration
and previously installed software, then lets engineers customize
the defaults if desired.
- I/O utility tools enable expert debugging and system optimization.
Tools include interactive I/O, VISA Assistant and IO Control
to enable test system experts to control and debug both the
bus and the instrument.
- Sample programs such as "hello world" programs
that identify instrument communications are available in common
development languages. Engineers can copy and paste sample
code directly into their programs to accelerate test development.
The Agilent I/O Libraries Suite 14.0 supports
multiple programming languages including Visual Basic 6.0, Visual
Basic .NET, C, C++, C#, VEE Pro and LabVIEW, enabling engineers
to work in their preferred programming language. The connection
software provides the broadest instrument communication available
using VXIplug&play or IVI-COM drivers and native instrument
commands. The software simultaneously manages a wide range of
I/O software layers including Agilent VISA, VISA COM or SICL,
and works easily with other vendor's I/O software.
Automating Test System Design with the
Agilent T&M Toolkit 2.0
Test engineers need to quickly develop a sequence
of measurements and generate test results to determine if their
design performs to specification, test new prototype products
and ensure the initial manufacturing process is correct. Engineers
striving to make the most of today's limited resources often
use test management software systems called test executives
to automate their production test systems. As manufacturing
technologies improve to meet larger production volumes and quality
standards tighten to deliver higher yields with less rework,
software that runs the production test system has become more
critical than ever.
Manufacturing and test processes can vary
widely between companies, between facilities within the same
company, and even between different product lines within the
same plant. This makes it challenging to find an off-the-shelf,
ready-to-run software system that exactly meets an engineer's
particular needs and requirements and that can be leveraged
across a company. As a result, engineers often write their own
test management software to automate instrument control and
measurement sequences for design validation and prototype testing.
Agilent's enhanced T&M Toolkit 2.0 with
Test Automation offers the occasional programmer an easy-to-use
alternative to costly and cumbersome off-the-shelf test executives
and provides the industry's fastest method of sequencing measurements
and analyzing results in an open environment. T&M Toolkit
2.0 allows engineers to rapidly build customized test executive
applications in a fully integrated, consistent environment using
their software language of choice.
The T&M Toolkit 2.0 features new functionality
for existing instrument connection tools, I/O monitoring and
driver wizards, specialized T&M math, and graphs for creating
applications in Visual Studio. New features of the Agilent T&M
Toolkit Version 2.0 with Test Automation also allow engineers
to:
- Save time by creating tests using built-in branching logic,
limit checking and debugging.
- Easily export test results that have been automatically
captured in XML format to Excel, or analyze test results instantly
using automatically generated control charts and histograms.
Previously, engineers designed and supported their own analysis
programs.
- Quickly control and automate measurements by sequencing
SCPI commands, VEE code, any Microsoft .NET language code
(including Visual Basic .NET, Manage C++ and C#), VXIplug&play,
IVI-C and IVI-COM drivers. Working in their development language
of choice enables engineers to use the programming environment
they are most familiar with and allows them to focus on their
measurements rather than spending time learning new languages.
As part of Agilent's commitment to supporting
industry standard programming languages, the Agilent T&M
Toolkit 2.0 includes open, component-based software tools that
help boost productivity, reduce costs and accelerate time to
market by providing engineers an easy to use interface. Last
year, Agilent announced support for both Microsoft Visual Studio
.NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. The Test Automation
can function with or without Visual Studio .NET.
Conclusion
A turning point in the T&M industry was Agilent's 1972 introduction
of HPIB, which later became the industry standard IEEE488 that
changed the way instruments communicate with computers. Today,
Agilent continues this tradition of innovation by offering the
most system-ready instruments of any T&M vendor, as well
as software tools that take advantage of open industry programming
environments and PC-standard I/O's to accelerate test system
development.
Agilent's I/O Libraries Suite 14.0 and T&M
Toolkit 2.0 provide new automation capabilities that make it
simpler than ever for engineers -- whether they are experts
or occasional users -- to design a test system. These tools
help companies protect their software and hardware investments
by taking advantage of computer-standard software and I/O to
accelerate connection and automation of test systems, even when
using instruments from multiple vendors. Agilent system ready
test instruments, software and global support combine to help
make configuring, connecting and automating a test as easy as
connecting a printer to a PC.
###
Microsoft and Visual Studio are U.S.
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
|
Contact Us