Eliminating Legacy Performance Barriers Imposed on New Systems

Cost savings and significant gains in system performance, system utilization, and throughput could be realized, when upgrading, modernizing or replacing subsystems, if the integration of new technologies into the legacy systems were not hindered by the constraints and restrictions imposed by the existing system design structure. Focusing on the issue of Automatic Test System (ATS) modernization, this project investigates the feasibility of developing and implementing a new, non-traditional system integration approach (paradigm) to minimize, or eliminate the constraints and restrictions which surface when new test technologies are introduced into existing ATS (legacy) system designs, concepts or frameworks. The effort considers the application of a model-driven system integration strategy, eliminating the dependency of the legacy ATS applications to the specific test resources used in the system, and formulating a new ATS design framework to facilitate the insertion of new technologies into legacy systems throughout their life cycle. Application of the approach to other systems and subsystem domains is also considered.