Test Engineer's Workstation
Researchers create an interactive, computer-based how-to guide for test engineers.
by Rick Robinson
AS ANYONE WHO has ever hefted a massive auto-repair or computer-software manual knows, how-to guides can be intimidating. Engineers, too, face daunting manuals, so researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) turned a computer into an interactive how-to guide called the Test Engineer's Workstation (TEWS). The machine uses hypertext links and multimedia — graphics, video and sound — to hasten the learning curve on complex test and evaluation jobs.
TEWS program developed by GTRI
researchers shows customizable menus that guide users
through test processes.
Click screen for 150-dpi |
Developed by GTRI's Electronics Systems Laboratory (ELSYS) at the request of the U.S. Air Force, TEWS grew out of an ongoing Air Force need to bring new test engineers up to speed quickly in electronic-warfare systems testing. GTRI developers distilled massive test manuals into on-screen programs that lead test engineers through evaluations of new or upgraded systems, helping them plan, conduct and accurately analyze a test.
"Users were lacking in automated tools," says Brian A. Keeton, an ELSYS research engineer who works in the Test Process Development Branch of the Systems Evaluation Division. "They had hard-copy documents and word of mouth from people who had done it before, but nobody had turned that into something where you can sit down at your PC and do something real with it. Now you can quickly find out what a piece of equipment does and what it did the last time, rather than having to try to find the guy down the hall who handled it the last time, but who may not be there anymore."
In developing the TEWS platform, the GTRI team combined a host of video and audio materials — from taped lectures to slides and video — onto CD-ROM discs that users access from high-end Windows personal computers. Users click an on-screen subject and then listen to associated lecture materials and graphics, replaying any segment they want.
Researchers primarily developed TEWS with two software programs: Microsoft Word for Windows and its associated macro language; and Adobe Acrobat, a program that lets users view documents online in a non-editable graphical format that hinders document corruption or misappropriation.
TEWS aids users in the analysis of test data through its ability to use the Automated Data Reduction Software (ADRS), which computes performance and effectiveness measures to satisfy test program requirements for electronic warfare systems. Implemented as a Microsoft Windows application, ADRS helps ensure the quality of data collected and the ability of the resulting analysis to satisfy the test objectives.
Users can customize TEWS, if they wish. They can modify menu screens and hyperlinks built into the Workstation. Moreover, a video-capture card lets users add standard video input to existing test programs. This feature allows users to customize the system to their location and test facility type, and add on-line information about defense systems as they are tested.
"Maintaining good descriptions of results means that if, say, two years later you make another change and you have to retest, you don't have to start over," Keeton says. "You can compare it to the last test pretty easily."
Just as important, TEWS helps users develop their own test plans from scratch. Following existing Air Force-approved outlines, GTRI developed a helper program that walks users through the task of creating test plans, along with template documents they can follow as they go.
"The Workstation goes through the format of a given document and tells the user what types of things should show up, what level of detail they need to really have a complete document and what's normally expected to be covered," Keeton explains. In a move that's a bit reminiscent of computer tax-form software, this program even has help boxes that pop up with questions users need to ask themselves.
The GTRI researchers were deliberate in their choice of the IBM PC for TEWS, rather than another, more exotic computer system. The PC platform, they determined: had the required computing capacity; was relatively inexpensive to purchase and maintain; and was user-expandable with handy, off-the-shelf extras such as CD-ROM recording drives.
Several TEWS systems have been installed at the Air Force Development Test Center at Eglin Air Force Base, the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB and at GTRI to support the defense-systems testing arena. The TEWS approach may have applications in other fields as well, especially those that require an efficient combination of on-the-job training, system testing, and archiving of test results and methods.
Such control over testing can be quite valuable, Keeton says. "Taking time to carefully plan a test and predict the results means you can say, 'Let's not spend $30,000 tomorrow to fly the next mission until we figure out why this data's not matching up.' "
For more information, you may contact Andrew Henshaw,
Electronics Systems Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0840. (Telephone:
404/894-7270)
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