Real world applications of synthetic instrumentation

A current focus of many instrumentation and automatic test equipment (ATE) designers is the area of synthetic instrumentation. This instrumentation, which consists of physically separate building blocks or modules, provides the opportunity to reduce the system´s overall hardware content by eliminating common hardware functionality located within each traditional instrument. This modular design provides opportunities for lower lifecycle cost, smaller physical packages and increased capabilities through module upgrades. However, the design of synthetic instrumentation and its integration into an ATE system poses technical challenges not typically seen with traditional instrumentation. Traditional instrument developers are now faced with the challenge of determining how their existing and future modules, for example a digitizer or waveform generator, satisfy a portion of the requirements of a synthetic instrument. ATE developers are challenged to identify the proper set of modules, primarily commercial off the shelf (COTS), that together satisfy the system level requirements. In addition, they must address instrumentation concurrency, synchronization, switching, and develop a software and hardware architecture that supports future upgrades as technology advances. Each of these issues requires a strong system engineering discipline that can develop a robust system architecture.