Software development practices for military automatic test equipment

The use of ATE (Automatic Test Equipment) has progressed quite rapidly in the last decade and there is a continual attempt by military and industry to agree upon reasonable guidelines for the generation of ATE in hardware and software. This paper presents an approach to software development practices for military Automatic Test Equipment recognizing that hardware and software are closely knit together with respect to design, implementation, and documentation. Since ATE has a considerable amount of interfacing between hardware and software, empha sis is toward the combining of specific hardware and software functions into a test program set. The test program set can significantly upgrade the quality of documentation, reduce the quantity of redundant documentation and still provide ade quate visibility to the customer.