Automated Support System for the Development and Maintenance of TPSs

Test Program Sets (TPS) within an Automatic Test System (ATS) represent a significant investment that must often be preserved during an obsolescence update to the ATS equipment. This effort seeks to develop a set of automated tools to convert legacy TPSs into industry-standard Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML) descriptions of the TPS tests, interfaces, and configurations.5-D Systems will develop a suite of command line-driven tools whose interfaces are integrated through industry standard file formats such as ATML. The cornerstone of 5-D"s solution is the Legacy Program Parser (LPP) that uses a two-stage process to build an executable model of a legacy test program and then process the individual test program script files against the model to create ATML-encoded descriptions of the TPS. By using a two-stage modeling and simulation approach, 5-D"s LPP can support a variety of test program architectures and implementation languages using a single tool. 5-D Systems will leverage its extensive expertise in designing and developing ATSs and TPSs, maintaining TPSs across ATS iterations, and developing innovative software to address unique test-related problems.