Customer Solutions

Telematics Test System Based on PXI and TestStand

Author(s):

Marco Fiorentini, Alfautomazione S.r.I.

Industry:

Automotive

Product:

GPIB & Instrument Control, Measurement Studio, NI TestStand, PXI/CompactPCI

The Challenge:

Providing a high-performance, reliable turnkey solution for automatic end-of-line testing of telematics units.

The Solution:

Creating a telematics test system based on an open test platform using National Instruments PXI and TestStand hardware and Measurement Studio software with comprehensive test functions and short cycle time.

Introduction
Until recently, the silicon hardware in automobiles has been invisible to the consumer, but this is about to change with the emergence of new technology - telematics. Telematics manufacturers integrate many communication and multimedia functions within their products. Automotive engineers must test all these functions, including road planners and GPS navigation systems, GSM phones, CD and DVD players, and LCD display of the telematics unit. To be most effective, telematics test systems need to work as a single system while addressing the individual test needs of each telematics element.

In the rapidly evolving field of telematics, customers need a reliable, inexpensive test system flexible enough to meet their demands. Alfautomazione develops end-of-line testers to provide turnkey test solutions for these telematics products. We designed the NAVTEST3000 to be a rugged and reliable test solution by integrating National Instruments PXI hardware and TestStand test executive software. The CE-certified system guarantees operator and machine safety and satisfies test requirements for executable functions.

Hardware Design
We implemented the NAVTEST3000 using National Instruments PXI products to flexibly maintain functions executing inside telematic nodes. The system incorporates two PXI chassis connected through the MXI-3 bus and offers an IEEE 488 interface for additional rack and stack instruments. The modularity of the PXI products gave us the flexibility to customize for different telematics manufacturers while maintaining the reliability needed in manufacturing test applications.

With the communication capabilities of the telematics units, tests systems must work with many communication protocols. The NAVTEST3000 works with communication protocols, such as controller area network (CAN), vehicle area network (VAN), Bluetooth, and IRDA for flexible data transferring platforms.
Because we designed the NAVTEST3000 for optical inspection of satellite navigators, we used IMAQ Vision software for optical inspection of LCD display. A bay containing dual fixture turntables is readily accessible for loading and unloading telematics units. We built the NAVTEST3000 with system shielding and grounding to assure low EMF radiation and high noise immunity.

Software Integration
We chose TestStand, National Instruments environment for test sequences, as the software environment and easily integrated the software with a number of functions for statistics, label printing, and product differentiation. With TestStand, we cut the cost of test, gained better performance, and optimized the connectivity to NI hardware. Because TestStand can run tests in parallel, the NAVTEST3000 can test several telematics units concurrently.

We greatly simplified test step development through a "configuration" approach. To create a test step, we use a soft front panel to configure the parameters of a driver. These parameters are saved, then recalled when that test step executes. We call these drivers Virtual Panel configurable drivers. These form the building blocks of the test sequence for the system. We chose LabVIEW and Measurement Studio to write the virtual panel configurable drivers because NI provides easy to use programming environments and powerful yet simple techniques to interface with external code. Statistic and maintenance software add-ons are available to provide the system with a complete and powerful solution for statistical process control (SPC) analysis and guided repair functions.

Conclusion
A tier one automotive electronics manufacturer approached us to provide an end-of-line turnkey solution to test their telematics unit. We could change fixturing and application software in less than five minutes. With a dual fixture turntable, NAVTEST3000 can simultaneously test two stations and perform masked time operations thus increasing system efficiency and productivity.

For more information, contact:

Marco Fiorentini

Alfautomazione S.r.l Via Magenta

12-20035 Lissone-Milano, Italy

Tel: +39 039 245 9972

Fax: +39 039 245 9980

E-mail: marco.fiorentini@alfautomazione.it

Web: alfautomazione.com

ENF DMWMTelematics.pdf

View the entire user solution in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.