Vertical test integration

Today most every weapon system is very electronics intensive. Digital computers are at the core of military aircraft, ship and vehicle weapons systems. Indeed, each weapon system's performance is largely determined by its digital computers and other electronics. This electronics dependency is necessary in order to provide the speed, functional compliance and accuracy to achieve the required weapon system performance. Historically, test systems required for the various maintenance levels and also at the manufacturing site have each been uniquely developed, employed and sustained for only one area of weapon system electronics support. There are a number of reasons for this situation including different organizations responsible for the levels of support, different funding sources, timing limitations and technical feasibility. In recent years, however, commercial-off-the-shelf(COTS) advances in measurement and stimulation hardware, personal computers, Windows operating systems, flexible test programming languages and more have made it technically feasible to develop a family of test systems that provide common weapon system electronics support at all levels. Some use the phrase Vertical Test integration to describe this concept of factory/field/depot integration.