Testing

Astrobotic, a lunar logistics company, has unveiled its Lunar Surface Proving Ground (LSPG) – a constructed moonscape for testing- at its facility in Mojave, California. Measuring 100mx100m, the “high-fidelity 3D test field” mimics the topography and optical properties of the Moon’s surface, said the company. The site will be used for testing spacecraft and rover sensors, for example lunar landing ...

The JTAG port was introduced more than 30 years ago, but has changed as the industry has evolved, says James Stanbridge. For some engineers the term JTAG means a device programming port. For others it exists to plug in a microprocessor emulator or debugger. Originally it was devised for neither of these applications. The acronym JTAG stands for the Joint ...

To meet low-power and high-performance requirements, system on chip (SoC) designs are equipped with several asynchronous and soft reset signals. These reset signals help to safeguard software and hardware functional safety as they can be asserted to speedily recover the system onboard to an initial state and clear any pending errors or events. By definition, a reset domain crossing (RDC) ...

NI has set out its stall for AI in the test industry. Following the announcement of LabView AI assistant at the end of last year (currently in beta testing), CTO of technology and innovation, Kevin Shultz spoke to Electronics Weekly about what will be the role of AI in test. He explained that the increasing complexity of products being tested ...

Historically, component temperature has been correlated with reliability, with early studies relating field failure rates to steady-state component temperature. More recently, physics-based reliability prediction has related failure rates of electronic assemblies to the magnitude of temperature change over an operational cycle (power-on, power-off, power-on…) and rate of temperature change, both of which are influenced by steady-state operating temperature. Electronics failures ...

Remote operations may have been accelerated by the pandemic, but they were already well established to improve productivity and safety, says Andrea Vinci. With engineers frequently around hazardous equipment such as dynamometers, any measures to remove personnel from risk are welcome. Meanwhile, the skills shortage in engineering continues to bite. Retaining experience and knowledge while training a new generation is ...

The choice of battery for an application is critical. It affects the bill of materials and product lifetime cost, says Björn Rosqvist. Consider a battery-powered remote sensor. The cost of its battery is usually small compared with the overall product cost, but then think about the cost of replacing that battery. For wireless sensors deployed in remote areas, used for ...

Pulsar Fusion, UK aerospace company, has successfully tested its large-scale plasma engine designed for propelling larger satellites. The work was partly funded by the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the engine, which is 10 times larger than conventional engines of its kind, was fired at the University of Southampton at the end of last month, Pulsar has announced. The project ...

One judge described the Rhinoe DRAM tester as a “big advancement in DRAM testing. I spot a Raspberry Pi in there too!” Another commented on the evidence of innovation for this “attention grabbing product”. Another judge spotted its potential to solve the critical problem of how to test small batch memory production and undertake a root cause analysis for smaller ...

A compact wireless data acquisition system can investigate, monitor and optimise electric rotor motor operation, say Rolf Spellmeyer and Diego Llopis. In modern electric vehicles, different types of electric motors are available. Automobile manufacturers may select asynchronous or synchronous motors, and in some cases, they combine both motor types in one vehicle. In this context, synchronous motors are considered more ...