ATML Workbench

Military and commercial systems and platforms use electronics in their functional, control, and guidance systems. Functional testing of these electronics is performed using Automatic Test Equipment (ATE). Changes or upgrades to the electronics drive changes to the ATE. The ATE itself also requires upgrade to address obsolescence issues. These changes drive high life-cycle costs as there is significant time and effort required to implement them. The ATML Workbench is a suite of software tools utilizing industry standards to define ATE capabilities, test requirements, and test approaches to improve instrument interchange, allow faster technology insertion, and reduce the life-cycle costs of development and sustainment.

The ATML Workbench is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) encapsulating a set of tools and functionality used in the development and maintenance of IEEE ATML specification documents. The ATML standard IEEE 1671 consists of six sub-standards, each one representing a different component of the ATE environment.

• 1671.1 Test Description/Test Results
• 1671.2 Instrument Description/Instance
• 1671.3 UUT Description/Instance
• 1671.4 Test Configuration
• 1671.5 Test Adapter/Instance
• 1671.6 Test Station Description/Instance

Tools

The primary tools contained in the ATML Workbench are the Translator, Reader and Allocator.

Translator – The Translator tool reads the original test script (currently only ATLAS is supported) and “translates” this code into a 1671.1 compliant test description. It does this through a multi-step process where an intermediary XML document is created, then that XML is translated to the final 1671.1 document.

Reader – The Reader tool is used to convert existing test configuration files (currently only supporting CASS TPSI files) to the 1671.4 test configuration standard. For Test Program Sets (TPSs) that do not have TPSI files, supporting documents may be opened within the Reader, and utilizing advance copy/paste functionality, data may be populated directly into specific data entry forms to generate the 1671.4 file.

Allocator – The Allocator tool reads in the 1671.1 Test Description and the 1671.4 Test Configuration documents and determines whether test stations selected by the user from a database are capable of performing the tests required. If a selected test station is unable to generate the required signals, the Allocator will indicate which capabilities are lacking.

Document Manager - Because there are close relationships between the 1671 documents describing a given TPS, management of each document type is necessary. A repository of these documents must be collected for current and future translations and analysis. For this reason a small document management system has been incorporated into the ATML Workbench. Each component used within a test environment can to be represented as a 1671-compliant document and assigned a globally unique identifier. These identifiers are used as the linking mechanism between the various documents describing a specific TPS..

Forms - Specialized data entry forms have been created In order to collect all the data used to represent each of the test environment components. These forms aid the user in the data entry process by providing direction and validation against the relevant schema and by allowing 1671-compliant documents to be built through a graphical user interface instead of working directly in XML.

Signal Model Library - The Signal Model Library is designed to contain IEEE 1641 Signal Test Definition (STD) compliant Test Signal Framework (TSF) models. Libraries of signal models are available from IEEE, UTRS, and other organizations. In addition, users may develop their own signal models using commercially available software.