The role of an Automated Test System is to generate or simulate real-world stimulus signals that your Device Under Test (D.U.T.) is designed to encounter, analyse its performance over a range of conditions by acquiring data and reporting outcomes. The nature of testing will often need to be consistent, rigorous, repeatable, and carried out over long periods of time, especially if the D.U.T. is expected to perform over a wide range of environmental conditions.

One example is when a Production / Engineering department needs to stretch the functional legs of a newly developed prototype and to verify its performance, robustness, endurance and so on, additional time will need to be devoted to developing a suitable approach to test & measurement.

Developing an automated test solution is the best approach to providing greater test coverage and ensuring that your Unit-Under-Test (U.U.T.) is on the right path to meeting its functional specifications. An automated solution will vastly improve the speed at which data is acquired, assessed, and reported, ready for reviewing by your team.

Before the start of testing, a Design Verification Test plan (D.V.T.) is usually created which outlines all the test parameters and requirements that must be met by your design.

The plan is an important document, used as a basis to form the building blocks of a suitable Test System. How these tests a run comes down to the importance of having good application test software. An Automated System, if developed well, can yield significant cost and time savings to a project, which can be anything up to 20% depending on size and complexity.