Computer-Aided Test Equipment

EE /11 December 1988 COMPUTER-AIDED TEST EQUIPMENT by AW Moore MA The (relatively) low cost, ease of use and flexibility of the personal computer make it eminently suitable for the control of test and measuring instruments. Many instrument and computer makers have realized this and have brought on to the market a number of parallel and serial buses to link a personal computer to one or more suitable instruments. Not all that long ago, electronic equip- ment could be tested by the measuring of a few parameters (voltage, frequency, and so on) at some selected points in the circuit. Nowadays, much of such equip- ment is controlled by a microprocessor. Testing of this kind of equipment can only be carried out effectively by measuring the relevant parameters at many points in the circuit. Moreover, a number of these measurements needs to be taken simultaneously, owing to their interrelation. With electronic equipment becoming more complex, instruments for testing such equipment have be...