Developing a Combined Armament Tester proof of concept and lessons learned

The Combined Armament Tester was designed for the A-10 to replace eight (8) existing armament testers. The primary goals of the design are field ruggedness coupled with a middle layer of software to enable test program set reuse with changes in the hardware. The unique middleware coupled with a streamlined development process enabled requirements to successful field demonstration in 10 months. The modular middleware permits substitution of underlying hardware while minimizing impacts to existing TPSs. Simplified middleware calls results in easier to read, debug, and review TPS source. An integrated self test feature identifies faults to the signal level and can permit degraded operation. This paper describes the design techniques used to achieve these goals while maintaining a design to cost. Lessons learned during development and ground tests are presented.