A generic software of automatic test system: research and implementation

Automatic test equipment (ATE) technology has evolved considerably over the years, matching the diagnostic test requirements of advancing avionics. One of ATE development objectives has been to identify more efficient ways of developing test program sets (TPS). Meeting this objective, we had defined a generic testing software architecture in our generic tester. Testing processes are described in several testing cards which are independent with test executive program. Testing cards can be developed by avionics maintenance engineers who may be unfamiliar with ATE and test executive program, and for whom,therefore, accommodating new TP or modifying old TP is easier. We call this card-driven automatic test software architecture. This paper describes the software structure. Discussing the common process of automatic testing, a generic software structure is proposed and implemented