Project Files
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Board Tester
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Bolton Engineering had designed the electronics for the
SensAble Technologies
OMNI Haptic Device. The system was to be produced in China, and SensAble wanted to make sure that all boards were fully tested prior to shipment to the U.S.
Mixed-signal boards often can be difficult to test, except by expensive, general-purpose, full-coverage bed-of-nails testers. Bolton Engineering proposed building a test station that would allow the OMNI embedded processor to functionally test itself.
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System Overview
The Board Tester interfaces to the OMNI via the
OMNI’s digital switch and analog potentiometer inputs.
All OMNI inputs and outputs are connected to the Board
Tester. During test, the OMNI switch inputs are
temporarily reconfigured as control outputs that send
control data in serial form to the Board Tester. A
Programmable Logic Device (PLD) decodes the serial
communication stream and configures the tester. The
Tester creates simulated signals to exercise the encoder
channels and inputs. It loads the amplifier outputs and
observes them at several power levels. The Tester
monitors motor amplifier output offsets and writes them
to OMNI processor board Flash memory.
Project Scope
Bolton Engineering wrote the specification, designed
the schematics, designed the 4-layer circuit board,
debugged the system, wrote the application software, and
delivered three testers.
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Consumer and Computer
