In the aerospace/defence industry, development and implementation of a project can span years of painstaking planning and research, as well as require global teamwork. In such cases, reliable test and measurement systems, which can last for upwards of 25 years to span an entire project time, must be provided in a small form factor for easy worldwide deployment.
Standard interfaces have been key to quick deployments in the past, but today's ever-increasing bandwidth needs and higher data transfer rates are pushing the limits of current test interface standards. As a result, Agilent has contributed to the development of a new standard to meet today's challenges and has announced prototyped products, formatted in the new standard, that address the complex needs of this industry.
Agilent and VXI Technology have worked as initial charter members on a new standards consortium to develop a next-generation LAN-based modular platform standard for automated test systems. LXI (LAN extensions for instrumentation) combines built-in measurement science and PC-standard input/output (I/O) connectivity that uses the widely accepted Ethernet communications interface to provide a compact, flexible package with high-speed capabilities and reliable measurements.
LXI enables test engineers to:
* Attain the performance of instruments in a new compact form factor.
* Improve system flexibility with a modular approach.
* Increase system longevity using PC standard I/O (LAN) and software.
The LXI Consortium, a not-for-profit corporation made up of leading test and measurement companies, will manage the LXI standard. The group's goals are to develop, support and promote the LXI standard. While LXI is ideal for test engineers in the aerospace/defence industry, it provides the same benefits in such areas as the automotive, industrial, medical and consumer electronics markets.
In addition to developing the LXI standard, Agilent has also developed prototypes of new high-performance microwave synthetic instruments in the new LXI format. These components enable a collection of hardware and software modules to be concatenated to emulate a standard instrument. They were developed to meet the stringent demands of the US Department of Defense NxTest vision, which requires flexible, morphable modular instrumentation.
Agilent's LXI-based synthetic instruments: reduce test component sizes, making system expansion easier; reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating redundant hardware and software; increase speed of test through simplified and open standards-based hardware modules that are backward- and forward-compatible.
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