Defense & Aerospace Customers and Programs

Teradyne is a trusted provider of avionics test equipment for the United States Air Force. Our equipment is deployed at several Air Logistics Centers, including Warner Robins, Oklahoma City and Ogden. Our program involvement spans across the following Air Force organizations ‒ Material Command, Air Combat Command, Transportation Command, and Global Strike Command.

Teradyne’s Spectrum-9100 Series supports key USAF aircraft, including the B-1B, B-2, C-17 and F-15. The Spectrum-9100 Series services these programs in a range of environments ‒ production factories, contractor logistics support operations, repair depots, and intermediate-level shops.

Our instruments, including the Ai-Series analog instruments, Bi-Series bus test instruments, and Di-Series digital instruments are integrated into automatic test equipment (ATE) provided by weapons system Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). These programs include GMATS, the F-16, F-22 and F-35.

The original Integrated Family of Test Equipment (IFTE) and today’s Next Generation Automatic Test System (NGATS) are two of the standard automatic test systems designated by the Department of Defense (DoD) for use by the US Army. These test systems employ Teradyne’s Ai-Series analog instruments, Bi-Series bus test instruments and Di-Series digital instruments, both in the field and at the Army’s electronics repair depots. These systems are used for detecting and diagnosing electronic faults in the Army’s communications and weapon systems, across all maintenance levels from
the front line to the depot.

The US Marine Corps, which originally used the Navy's Consolidated Automatic Support System (CASS) for avionics support, in 2003 launched the Reconfigurable Transportable CASS (RTCASS) program to better serve mobile requirements. RTCASS is heavily populated with Teradyne technology, including:

• M9-Series digital instruments which align to latest performance requirements and streamline TPS migration from CASS
• Ai-710 parallel analog instruments which reduce test times, enhance operational test coverage, and improve tester utilization
• Bi-410 serial bus instruments which replace several bus emulators with a single card slot

More recently, the Marines required a test system for vehicle, radar, communications, and missile systems that could test and diagnose defective electronic assemblies in the field. The system had to be capable of spanning the diverse test requirements of the combat systems used by the Marines, yet it had to be rugged and transportable for deployment in battlefield situations. The Third Echelon Test System (TETS) was developed for this purpose and it was designed from the ground up to incorporate best-in-class VXI instrumentation.

Hundreds of TETS systems have been deployed and as many test program sets (TPS) have been developed for rapidly pinpointing defective electronics, thereby maximizing the availability of combat systems to the fighting force. TETS systems are used extensively for intermediate-level testing and in factories to test and repair electronic assemblies prior to integration into weapon systems and combat vehicles used by the US Marines.

Teradyne instrumentation was chosen for TETS due to its:

• High performance, repeatable test functionality
• High density packaging to minimize VXI slot space, while meeting the channel count requirements
• Ruggedness and reliability with capability to withstand transport on the back of a vehicle
• Software programming tools that facilitate development and debug of TPS programs
• Diagnostics capable of pinpointing down to faulty component, to accelerate repair and return of assembly to the field

The United States Navy has been at the forefront of the Department of Defense's (DoD) drive for standards-based, COTS test equipment. The Navy’s Consolidated Automatic Support System (CASS) embodies these principles and has been instrumental in reducing the Navy’s cost to acquire and maintain Automatic Test Equipment (ATE). Designed with best-in-class subsystems, the CASS station tests electronic assemblies for several Navy programs and has enabled the obsolescence of legacy ATE by migrating test programs to CASS.

Teradyne has supplied the Digital Test Units (DTU) for CASS since the early 1990’s. More recently, we were selected to supply parallel analog (ATI) and serial bus (BTI) test instruments to upgrade CASS and accelerate the Navy’s tester consolidation objectives.

In 2010, the Navy launched the eCASS program to replace the CASS stations and provide a modern platform to support weapons systems that will enter service in the next 10 years. As with the prior generation system, Teradyne’s instruments will serve as core elements of the eCASS station.

Teradyne is the supplier of digital automatic Automated Test Equipment (ATE) for the UK Ministry of Defence. We support the Harrier, Tornado, and Euro fighter programs by supplying augmentation carts, designed to work in conjunction with our core ATE systems.

Teradyne’s other international programs include overseas support of:the Patriot Missile system and the F-15, Japanese Defense Authorities weapons systems, and various programs throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The Spectrum CTS, designed with Teradyne’s Spectrum-9100 Series test platform as its core, incorporates a wide variety of features to meet the maintenance testing needs of Boeing commercial airplane operators and commercial avionics suppliers.

Spectrum CTS contains the test equipment, test programs, test fixtures and ancillary equipment needed to test 737, 747, 757, 767 and 777 avionics. In addition to providing a complete automatic test solution for a broad range of commercial avionics, Spectrum CTS fully replaces the ATS-182A test system used in many airline depots.