NI's aerospace testing solutions through the G Systems case study

Latest update time：2021-08-30 23:54

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"By leveraging advanced software architecture and NI hardware, G Systems is able to provide Lockheed Martin Aeronautics with a highly configurable and scalable system to meet current and future F-35 VSIF requirements."

- Michael Fortenberry, G Systems, Inc.

Modern military and aviation equipment are more complex and integrated than ever before, which leads to increasing test complexity. How does NI's test platform cope with these challenges? Let's start with the case of G Systems.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company commissioned G Systems to develop the F-35 Aircraft System Integration Facility (VSIF) to monitor the integration testing of aircraft subsystems . The VSIF system is distributed across multiple servers to achieve load balancing and obtain the required system performance. This distributed software architecture includes six major custom applications to support future expansion of the system.

The challenge of this project was to develop an integrated system to acquire various types of data, including analog, digital, video, and data transmitted from other systems via reflective memory, for use at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' F-35 Vehicle Systems Integration Facility (VSIF) to monitor integration testing of aircraft subsystems.

G Systems, Inc. Using NI DAQ to build the F-35 Aircraft System Integrated Facility (VSIF) data acquisition system , the following specific solution should be of interest to many engineers.

G Systems uses five PXI chassis with multiple NI data acquisition (DAQ) cards to perform analog and digital acquisition functions. These five PXI chassis form an acquisition system with 640 analog channels and 480 digital channels. In order to control the total hardware cost of the system, the ability to combine various DAQ data acquisition boards while maintaining time synchronization is particularly important. The system maintains time synchronization through IRIG time signals provided by VSIF data acquisition or other signal sources within the VSIF laboratory. This time signal source is used to provide a start pulse and a 10 MHz clock, which is routed to each PXI chassis through a PXI-6653 synchronization board.

As for system configuration and data display, the system stores the configuration information of the VSIF data acquisition system in a relational database. G Systems also developed a custom graphical user interface to make it easy for system administrators to configure various aspects of the system.

Defense and aerospace have extremely high reliability requirements due to their industry specificity, and testing is the key to ensuring reliability and quality. For decades, NI has been committed to becoming a trusted advisor in the field of test and measurement, helping you optimize your test strategy to meet increasingly demanding technical and business needs.

Advantages of NI's Test Approach

Reduce schedule and budget risks

Deliver test suites on time and on budget with a customizable, off-the-shelf platform based on high-performance hardware and efficient software.

Reduce maintenance and support costs

Proactively manage technology insertion and lifecycle management strategies to reduce the burden of maintaining legacy and obsolete equipment.

Meeting demanding technical requirements

Leverage industry-leading measurement accuracy, processing performance, timing, and synchronization capabilities to meet the demands of the most advanced applications.

For more examples of NI collaborating with domestic and international partners, please click here to read the original article. Here, the editor will first list several major application areas for you.

ATE Systems and Software

Radar, electronic stations and signals intelligence

Embedded Software Testing

Communications and navigation systems testing

Mechatronic system testing

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