The Development of an Automated Testing Machine for Test Fixtures

This paper presents all the steps of developing an automated testing machine used for identifying wiring errors which may appear in the manufacturing process of ICT (in-circuit test) and FCT (functional test) fixtures. The machine is a Flying-Probe type machine, using the probe to touch every test pin of the fixture. The control of the machine is done by a PC used as a soft PLC (programmable logic controller) running TwinCAT 3. The UI (user interface) is made in NI LabVIEW, which communicates with the soft PLC using an ADS (Automation Device Specification) library. For measuring the continuity between the test pins and the backside interface of the fixture, a custom 2112 channel switching device was made using analog integrated circuits along with a STM32 microcontroller. The new automated testing machine proved to meet all the requirements, making fixture testing easier, faster and much more efficient.