This is an exciting year for Bloomy as the company prepares for NIWeek 2017, the 23rd annual conference for software-defined systems in measurement and control, to be held on May 22nd-25th at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX.
Bloomy's Business Unit Manager for Aerospace HIL and Real-Time Test, Roy Walker, will join NI on stage this year for the 2017 Alliance Day morning keynote. The session will speak to strategic application spaces that NI along with key partners are collaboratively investing in. Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing is one of these applications and one in which Bloomy received the NI designation of Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) Specialty Alliance Partner earlier this year.
Additionally, Bloomy’s Electronics Functional Test (EFT) Module for TestStand is nominated as a finalist for a LabVIEW Tools Network Product of the Year award. This award honors add-on software products that exhibit the highest level of excellence and NI platform alignment. The overall winner will be announced on Monday, May 22nd during the 2017 Alliance Day Lunch Keynote and Awards Ceremony.
Bloomy’s world-class engineering team will present four technical sessions spanning topics such as an open systems architecture approach to BMS HIL testing, personalizing TestStand with custom step types, self-test methods for periodic ATE verification, and reuse in user interfaces.
Come see the latest Bloomy and NI technology on display at booth #205
Stop by the Bloomy pavilion, booth #205 on the expo hall floor, where Bloomy will feature demos in aerospace real-time test, battery test and simulation and electronic assembly functional test.
- The Electronics Functional Test (EFT) Module for TestStand exhibit demonstrates how companies can improve the quality of their test development and deployment, while reducing the time to production test. The EFT Module for TestStand, this year's showcase product and available on the LabVIEW Tools Network, complements the TestStand framework to provide an architecture that focuses on automated functional test of electronic assemblies for the production environment, while maintaining the extensibility and low level control of full-featured TestStand. The EFT Module provides the most common architectural-level software functionality required for automated test systems, allowing test engineers to focus on the specifics of testing products. In the exhibit, a sample unit under test (UUT) consisting of an electronic printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) will be tested on two flavors of test systems from Bloomy’s UTSTM family of electronics functional testers: the entry-level USB-based compactUTS, and the modular PXI-based UTS. Attendees will receive a demonstration of the benefits of each platform, as well as the EFT Module for TestStand’s three major components:
- Hardware Access Framework – a hardware and measurement abstraction layer that provides an intuitive way to develop test sequences independent of specific instrumentation and platforms. Signal-based step types make UUT-centric actions and measurements easy to implement, and file-based hardware configurations mean that tests can be executed with varying instrumentation without the need to modify the TestStand sequence. In the demonstration, an identical sequence will be used to test the UUT on the two very different platforms.
- Manufacturing Operator Interface - a TestStand operator interface optimized for the manufacturing environment, with touchscreen and UUT part number-driven sequence selection. The exhibit will show how the manufacturing operator interface (OI) maps test sequences to UUT part numbers and test fixtures to allow operators and manufacturing engineers to easily select and execute the right test sequence with the right hardware for a particular UUT. Additional features like debugging, diagnostics, UUT images and operator feedback all improve the test execution experience.
- Database Reporting - a SQL database result processing plugin for NI TestStand that makes database setup and result processing fast and easy to implement. The report generator included with the plugin makes viewing, filtering, and exporting results quick and easy.
- The NI HIL Simulator incorporates NI platforms and architectures to create flexible closed-loop simulations for real-time testing of a wide range of devices. This highly-integrated platform scales to address devices with small I/O quantities up to complex systems with thousands of I/O points. Functionality is achieved using the latest NI PXI components in combination with a new NI extension for switching, loads and signal conditioning (SLSC); as well as VeriStand real-time test software, in a highly-accessible 19-inch rack. Bloomy provides the expertise to integrate these systems for aerospace and defense customers, providing more cost-effective systems for HIL testing with substantially faster lead times than traditional VME or other HIL systems.
The system includes a wide variety of sensor simulations, which are specifically designed to address the HIL testing needs of aerospace and defense customers. For example, aerospace applications benefit from the platform's inclusion of VDT, resolver, synchro and thermocouple simulations, as well as ARINC 429 and MIL-STD-1553; just to name a few. Coupled with NI's VeriStand real-time test software, aerospace companies will be able to integrate their own models from Simulink and other standard model sources, including C/C++, Fortran, and many others. This combination of off-the-shelf technologies and a powerful real-time environment addresses testing a wide variety of aerospace electronics assemblies, such as electronic engine controls, flight control computers, and subsystem controllers. The system also scales up for use in system integration laboratories (SILs), and the platform's available switching modules provide an unmatched, off-the-shelf ability to switch between simulated components and real components, and to provide multiple methods of fault insertion.
- The BMS HIL Demo is a small-scale demonstration of Bloomy’s BMS HIL Test System, an open system platform that hybrid and electric vehicle companies use for firmware development and regression testing of battery management systems (BMS). Learn how you can safely and efficiently simulate the characteristics of advanced Li-Ion batteries and battery systems using NI PXI hardware running VeriStand real-time test software, in tandem with Bloomy’s Battery Simulator 1200 and Battery Fault Insertion Unit. Execute models from MapleSim and LabVIEW. The working demonstration shows how a BMS responds to cell imbalances, thermal runaway, overvoltage, open- and short-circuit faults, and many other common Li-Ion battery states.
Learn from Bloomy experts
Several members of Bloomy’s world-class engineering team will present technical sessions. Attendees are encouraged to pre-register for these sessions using the conference mobile application. Space will be limited!
TS 0918 - An Open Systems Architecture Approach to BMS HIL Testing
Presented by: BTS Business Unit Manager, Steven Hoenig
Tuesday, May 23rd @ 4:45- 5:45 p.m.
Room: 13 A/B
Hardware-in-the-loop test is the standard approach to validating the design of xEV systems including the battery management system electronics and firmware. Explore an open systems architecture approach to HIL test system implementation including the overall benefits demonstrated by market-leading xEV companies like LG Chem and Jaguar Land Rover.
Join Steven as he explains the benefits of an open-systems approach, and how commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and software by Bloomy and NI can be used to facilitate this approach to ensure success in BMS design.
TS 0894 - Personalizing TestStand With Custom Step Types
Presented by: Turnkey Systems Manager, Grant Gothing
Wednesday, May 24th @ 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Room: 12A
TestStand custom step types are an effective way to personalize your TestStand developer environment by providing a customized interface to code modules that reduces direct code calls. Discover how you can make the most of your custom step types so they are practical, intuitive, and maintainable.
Join Grant as he shares best practices and design patterns for TestStand Custom StepType development. Understand how they can be used to improve test development productivity.
TS 0531 - Testing the Tester: Self-test Methods for Periodic ATE Verification
Presented by: Test Engineer, Jake Adams and Turnkey Systems Manager, Grant Gothing
Thursday, May 25th @ 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Room: F
Learn how verify that your automated test equipment is functioning properly on a regular basis. Bloomy's engineers examine some of the most common approaches. By understanding test coverage, advantages, disadvantages, and best practices, you can decide which test the tester method is best for your application.
Join Jake and Grant as they examine the different methodologies for periodic system evaluation. Learn the pros/cons and best practices of each method with respect to test coverage and implementation details.
TS 0643 - Reuse in User Interfaces: Skinnable Views and Dynamic Events
Presented by: Project Engineer, Michael Palafox
Thursday, May 25th @ 12:45-1:45 p.m.
Room: 19B
Developers often create reuse libraries to ease development in the processing layer of their future work. But applications tend to have distinct UI styles, which makes UI code reuse impossible without heavy modification. Learn how to use object-oriented programming and dynamic events to make views that can be skinned to match any application.
Join Michael as he explores the use of object-oriented programming and dynamic events to create reusable user-interface components that minimize code-duplication while enabling consistent UIs.
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