NI TestStand 3.0 – Developing Automated Test Systems Faster and Smarter

Awarded the “2002 Test Product of the Year Award” by readers of Test & Measurement World magazine, National Instruments TestStand is off-the-shelf test management software used by nine of the top 10 electronics manufacturers worldwide for rapid test system development (Electronic Business 300, 2002). Learn how TestStand 3.0 delivers continued innovation as the leading test management software among electronics manufacturers for automated prototype, validation, and manufacturing test systems. Using TestStand 3.0 you immediately eliminate hundreds of hours from your development time while maintaining complete control over the environment to meet your exact needs. Through unparalleled integration with the leading test development languages and the new user interface controls for quickly developing custom operator interfaces, TestStand 3.0 reduces test system development effort by 75 percent.

Introduction

Awarded the “2002 Test Product of the Year Award” by readers of Test & Measurement World magazine, National Instruments TestStand is off-the-shelf test management software used by nine of the top 10 electronics manufacturers worldwide for rapid test system development (Electronic Business 300, 2002). Learn how TestStand 3.0 delivers continued innovation as the leading test management software among electronics manufacturers for automated prototype, validation, and manufacturing test systems. Using TestStand 3.0 you immediately eliminate hundreds of hours from your development time while maintaining complete control over the environment to meet your exact needs. Through unparalleled integration with the leading test development languages and the new user interface controls for quickly developing custom operator interfaces, TestStand 3.0 reduces test system development effort by 75 percent.

See Also:
TestStand

Evolution of Test Executive Software

The globalization of product development and manufacturing has rapidly changed the test industry and created challenging requirements for faster test system development. Test departments are an integral asset for a successful product release. They must ensure that test systems are developed quickly to meet production schedules and the strict demands for improved quality. Custom, in-house test executives are no longer able to keep up with today’s fast paced product life cycles and requirements for scalability.

Test executive software has evolved rapidly in attempt to meet these needs over the past 10 years. Early test executives faced several shortcomings regarding reusability, performance, and scalability. Rapid in-house test executive development generated overwhelming complexity for test engineers not involved with the development and led to a variety of maintenance concerns for supporting the test executive software over the life of the test systems. Many of the test programs also became weighed down by test executive code inside the tests for collecting results, generating reports, and logging data to databases. This drawback severely limited the ability of in-house test executives to be easily reused or scaled for increased performance and volume. Facing these seemingly endless challenges and increasing time constraints, many electronics manufacturers began exploring the use of off-the-shelf test management software that could help them develop and maintain their test systems faster and more cost-effectively.

In 1998, National Instruments TestStand test management software was introduced to help electronics manufacturers overcome these challenges so that test engineers could develop their automated test systems faster and smarter through an off-the-shelf, customizable test management software framework. TestStand is rapidly becoming a de facto industry standard among electronics manufacturers worldwide. TestStand offers a modular test framework, which is necessary to overcome the increasing development challenges associated with rising device complexity and faster product cycle times. Using off-the-shelf test management software helps you achieve better system integration, which results in a reusable, cost-effective test architecture that delivers improved test coverage and high product quality.

Today, NI TestStand 3.0 illustrates continued innovation in test management software through further integration with popular test development languages such as LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, and Visual C/C++, as well as emerging languages such as Visual Basic .NET and C#. TestStand 3.0 also delivers new user interface controls for designing custom operator interfaces in a matter of minutes rather than weeks. TestStand 3.0 focuses on blurring the lines between the test management environment and the test development environments while maintaining separation to ensure scalability and efficient reuse of your test code. In all, there are more than 30 new features in this new release, including the major features below:

· Module Adapters enhanced for LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, .NET, and C/C++
· User Interface (UI) Controls for rapid operator interface development
· Deployment Utility for streamlining deployment to test systems locally or worldwide
· Find and Replace tools for easier test system maintenance
· Expression Browser enhancements simplify development of expressions
· Sequence Navigation Buttons speed viewing of subsequences
· Breakpoint and Watch Expression Editor provides debugging assistance

Maximize Code Reuse to Speed Up Test Development

Maximizing code reuse reduces the development effort and thus reduces overall system costs. In most sophisticated test systems, the investment in software development is equal to or greater than the hardware investment. It is essential that you find ways to efficiently reuse your test code modules in order to maximize the return on your development investment. Maximizing the reuse of software is no different than reusing your existing test hardware. For example, how often are you able to disregard all existing test hardware and buy a completely new set of hardware for each test system? Just as you do not disregard your prior investments in test hardware, you should take full advantage of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) test management software to ensure that you maximize reuse of your software.

The new module adapters in TestStand 3.0 will help you take advantage of your software development investment. TestStand 3.0 module adapters deliver instant connectivity and control over tests written in LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, C/C++, .NET. The module adapters provide the essential link between TestStand and your test development environment for automating, creating, debugging, and deploying your test modules through TestStand.

LabVIEW Adapter

Instantly connect to your LabVIEW test VIs without any additional programming using the new LabVIEW adapter. It provides direct connectivity to your LabVIEW 7 Express VIs to readily share data with TestStand through your front panel controls and indicators. This major improvement over TestStand 2.0 eliminates the previous requirements for a predefined test data cluster and the use of TestStand VIs to share additional data. It also offers a 2X improvement in reducing execution overhead using a new LabVIEW run-time interface option. Furthermore, you can now remotely automate LabVIEW 7 Express VIs located on other networked machines. This feature is very useful for automating your test modules running on a non-Windows operating system or on an embedded PXI or FieldPoint target running LabVIEW Real-Time. The new LabVIEW adapter also imports documentation and help information from your LabVIEW VIs.

LabWindows/CVI Adapter

The new LabWindows/CVI module adapter is also significantly improved. It includes a new flexible function parameter interface for calling functions within any LabWindows/CVI *.c, *.obj, *.lib, or *.dll file regardless of the function prototype. The LabWindows/CVI adapter configuration interface was updated so that you can easily view and assign TestStand variables to all of your LabWindows/CVI function parameters. This major improvement for LabWindows/CVI users greatly assists in developing test systems faster and promoting code reuse.

.NET Adapter

TestStand 3.0 includes a completely new adapter for calling .NET assemblies written in any .NET-compliant language, such as C# or Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. The .NET adapter works with .NET data types including numeric, enumeration, struct, and array types using the .NET Framework v1.1 and later. You can also create, debug, and edit .NET code modules through the new .NET adapter from TestStand when used with NI Measurement Studio 7.0 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 or later.
C/C++ DLL Adapter

The C/C++ DLL module adapter offers an improved configuration interface for viewing and assigning TestStand properties to function parameters. The C/C++ DLL module adapter also provides tighter integration with Microsoft Visual Studio C++ for improved code creation, debugging, and automation. When used with NI Measurement Studio 7.0 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, the C/C++ module adapter can also create code in Visual Studio .NET (C/C++).

Streamlining Operator Interface Development

Operator interfaces, commonly referred to as “front ends” or “GUIs” (graphical user interfaces) are another aspect of in-house test executives that can require significant development effort to create, upgrade, and maintain. In order to achieve the level of modularity required to maximize the reuse of your test systems, the architecture of your operator interface is extremely important. The ideal operator interface should be easy to use, consistent from product to product, offer localization for foreign languages, and be capable of handling multithreaded executions.

Delivering an operator interface capable of meeting each of these needs is not trivial. However, TestStand 3.0 eliminates 90 percent of this complexity with the introduction of the new TestStand User Interface (UI) Controls. These new controls encapsulate all of the required communication between TestStand and your operator interface. In addition, the new controls are automatically installed with TestStand 3.0 for use in LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, C++, Visual Basic .NET, and C#.

NI developers creating new operator interface examples with TestStand 3.0 noticed an immediate reduction in code using the new UI controls. In fact, the new TestStand 3.0 operator interfaces offer a more professional look and feel with greater intuitiveness through a single window interface while reducing the amount of code by nearly 90 percent.

For instance, the new LabVIEW operator interface uses only 24 VIs compared to the previous TestStand 2.0 operator interface with more than 200 VIs. Similarly, in the development of the LabWindows/CVI operator interface, the new controls reduced the number of lines of code by more than 90 percent, from over 12,000 lines of code to 1,067 lines. These improvements in operator interface development provide you with greater flexibility and significantly reduced development and maintenance time.


The new TestStand 3.0 UI Controls provide a simple approach to developing operator interfaces. The 12 new controls are used together to automatically handle more than 30 possible event messages that are sent between TestStand and your operator interface. Three hidden controls are “manager” controls that handle all of the communication with the TestStand engine. The remaining controls are “visible” controls such as the SequenceView Control for viewing the steps in a sequence and the ListBar control for selecting among multiple sequence files that may be opened or executing. Each control and its corresponding functionality are listed below:

Application Manager – Performs basic operations required to use the TestStand Engine
SequenceFileView Manager – Manages how other visible TestStand UI controls view and interact with a selected sequence file.
ExecutionView Manager – Manages how other visible TestStand UI controls view and interact with a selected TestStand execution.
Button – Connects to a manager control to perform common operator interface commands, such as, “Open Sequence File”.
Label – Connects to a manager control to automatically display text information about the application state, such as, Name of current operator or UUT status.
Status Bar – Connects to a manager control to display textual, image, or progress information about the application state.
SequenceView – Connects to a SequenceFileView Manager control or an ExecutionView Manager control to display the steps of a sequence from a selected file or execution.
ComboBox – Connects to a SequenceFileView Manager control or an ExecutionView Manager control to view or select a list of files, sequences, step groups, executions, threads, or stack frames.
ListBox – Connects to a SequenceFileView Manager control or an ExecutionView Manager control to view or select from a list of files, sequences, step groups, executions, threads, or stack frames.
ListBar – Displays several pages where each page contains a list of items. You can view and select items from the selected page. Connect a ListBar page to a SequenceFileView Manager control or an ExecutionView Manager control.
ReportView – Connects to an ExecutionView Manager control to display the report for the selected execution.

ExpressionEdit – Enables the user to edit a TestStand expression with the convenience of syntax coloring, popup help, and statement completion. This control can also be used for displaying read-only expressions or dialog boxes prompting the user to enter a TestStand expression.

Rapidly Deploy Your Test Systems

Effectively managing and organizing the development of a sophisticated automated test system is crucial for ensuring a smooth deployment of the test systems within your organization. The role of test management software is to assist you in both of these areas through the use of project management and deployment features. TestStand offers excellent workspace and project tools for organizing your test system development through source code system integration.

National Instruments recognizes the importance of a timely and smooth deployment of your test systems and provides an integrated deployment utility with TestStand 3.0 to guide you through packaging your applications for deployment. The new deployment utility is tightly integrated with your TestStand 3.0 workspace and project files to ensure that all of the necessary test sequences, code modules, and resource files are transported to your deployed test stations. The deployment utility automatically packages the necessary components needed to deploy your test system. The resulting deployment package is a Windows installer ready for deployment at your local or global test sites.


Rapid Application Development Tools Optimized for Test

To develop test systems faster and more cost-effectively, it is critical that you evaluate the modularity of your test system architecture and take advantage of software tools optimized for test. Using the proper development tools, such as NI TestStand 3.0 and LabVIEW 7 Express, LabWindows/CVI, or Measurement Studio for Visual Studio, you can trim hundreds of hours off your development time. There is no doubt you will develop test systems faster than even before and deliver a test architecture that is cost-effective and easy to maintain.

TestStand 3.0 also offers additional enhancements to the graphical Sequence Editor environment to assist you in delivering test systems faster. A few of these new features are listed below.

Find and Replace – Easily find and replace expressions containing variable and property names within a sequence or multiple sequence files. The Find and Replace tool can reduce significant hours of development.



Expression Browser – Expressions can be entered much faster in TestStand 3.0 thanks to the auto complete functionality and color highlighting. The Expression Browser also includes new constants and a variety of new functions.



Sequence Navigation Buttons – Browsing subsequences and performing code reviews is much easier with the new backward and forward sequence view navigation buttons. The buttons also store a history of sequence navigation for viewing your sequences as quickly as possible.



Breakpoint and Watch Expression Editor – Save breakpoints and watch expressions with sequence files (*.seq), set conditional breakpoints, act on watch expression value change, and manage breakpoints and watch expressions for entire station.

Conclusion

TestStand 3.0 expands the industry-leading test management software for developing your automated test systems “faster and smarter.” Designing automated systems to test today’s sophisticated products requires a well defined software architecture and development tools optimized for test. National Instruments TestStand 3.0 delivers more than 30 new features to deliver the fastest development for your test software and a more reusable test architecture through enhanced module adapters for calling LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, C/C++, Visual Basic .NET, and C# tests; new TestStand user interface controls for rapid operator interface development; and an intuitive deployment utility for quickly deploying TestStand based systems locally and worldwide.

See Also:
TestStand

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TestStand

Reader Comments | Submit a comment »

Excellent
This document outlineed the product really well. Thanks!
- haydn.povey@beptech.com - Oct 17, 2003