Tech Briefs Magazine - June 2024 - 9

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Best Practices for Testing and Validating Electronic Systems
In today's test and measurement environment, PC-based instruments are revolutionizing the way engineers debug and validate their electronic
systems. The debugging and validation of electronic systems requires easily programmable instruments with a variety of features that can help
engineers see what is happening in their design to identify errors and rectify them. In this interview, Bob Baker, Sales and Distributor Manager -
North America at Pico Technology, discusses best practices for implementing PC-based oscilloscopes and increasing their performance.
Tech Briefs: When engineers want to use an oscilloscope to test
their design, what are they trying to measure?
Bob Baker: Generally, they're trying to measure
voltage and timing. Those are the most
basic components, but oftentimes engineers
are trying to look at the metadata within a
signal, the signal shape, any noise tolerances,
or relationships between the different signals.
So to carry that thought forward, design
engineers will often use an oscilloscope with
prototypes, and they'll connect probes and test
points by hand. As designs scale up, they may decide to incorporate a
scope into a production line or into an automated testing environment.
And alternatively, we would see engineers possibly using scopes as a
convenient avenue to incorporate data acquisition and processing into
a larger system or a product.
Tech Briefs: What are some of the best practices a design engineer
needs to follow for implementing a scope successfully in
their test and measurement environment?
Baker: It really begins with a clear understanding of the signal or data
to be measured. Trying to minimize noise from external sources or
using high quality connection paths, shortening return grounds. And
it would start simple. You would set up the scope to capture the data,
then present that to a technician or engineer. Once that basic data acquisition
has been incorporated and verified, the design engineer can
now have confidence that they're pointing the scope's data to where
the test environment will be performing the data analysis.
Tech Briefs: How does Pico Technology address OEM customer's
applications/requirements?
Baker: Because we have a number of customers using our scopes
that way, Pico provides free access to our software development kit.
Some people refer to it as an SDK, along with code examples, which
are available on GitHub. You can use several languages, MATLAB,
LabVIEW, several C iterations. And we're also a very compact and
cost-effective solution.
Tech Briefs: Is there custom software needed for engineers to
integrate a scope into their system?
Baker: Pico provides our PicoScope 7 software, which has several
automation options, but most OEMs will opt to control the scope directly
with our SDK and that SDK gives direct access to the device's
USB driver to set up and collect that data and be utilized within
their OEM platform.
Tech Briefs: What are the benefits of using Pico in an OEM
application? Can you please explain with an example?
Baker: The fact that we offer compact and proven devices, the full
range of our product line that support continuous and automated
data collection, and our reputation for being low cost, high value.
So sometimes instead of a customer developing their own data
acquisition board to integrate into a system, they use one of our
scopes and effectively reduce the design completion window and
improve time to market.
A good example of this is a customer that is incorporating our
units in medical devices where the PicoScope is acting as a data-driven
decision-making tool.
They're also taking advantage of our scope's existing calibration
certificate to satisfy the time, traceability and calibration requirements
developing their own board design would demand.
On a production line, an embedded solution can lead to improved
product quality and potentially better output. In a product, our
hardware enhances performance and process optimization. Or in
machine maintenance applications, wear and failure characteristics
can be measured and tracked using a scope to predict when equipment
or components are entering a failure cycle so timely service
can be completed to maximize lifetime value.
Watch the full interview with Bob Baker
Tech Briefs, June 2024
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