"The research topic ""Integrated Automated Test Bench Control with Certifiable Test Documentation"" has the purpose to enhance and automate test conduction for the ground thermal test bench located in the Flight Test Facility (FTF) Fraunhofer-IBP, Germany. The FTF consists of a low-pressure chamber containing a 15-meter-long large passenger aircraft section, cockpit, cabin and aft business jet fuselage mock-ups and the aircraft calorimeter. In this setup a large number of different flight related tests can be done. These tests can be physiological tests with passengers or mechanical and functional tests for flight components.
The need to reduce the carbon footprint of flights requires the development of new flight components. The avionics industry requires intensive testing for new components to avoid fatal accidents. The Flight Test Facility provides a very special environment for these kinds of tests. It can simulate the pressure and temperature changes during a flight.
The ground thermal test bench is an automation system on the low level and a flight test bench on the superordinate level. Both technologies are two different application domains at that are hard to combine. The test chamber itself wants to be used for testing as often as possible. New test setups require work to reassemble the facility. These reconfigurations should be as easy as possible. And new test procedures should be easy and fast to define. On the other hand, it is necessary to document the tests very carefully. Without a proper documentation of the test procedure together with the test setup it is nearly impossible to reproduce a test scenario.
The goal of this research topic was to combine tools of the research partners RST and Razorcat to provide a powerful solution for the Flight Test Facility. It enables fast reconfiguration of the test bench, provides a system that captures and stores the data during test runs and a powerful test management solution that can generate the final test documentation. This can be done with an open and flexible software solutions that can utilize already existing and new automation hardware.
The research partners were able to deliver an update to parts of the control hardware of the test bench together with a number of integrated software solutions. The hardware update contained new Beckhoff PLC terminals for the ACC test chamber, a small separate test system connected to the main test bench. RST enhanced its GAMMA middleware to connect the different automation systems and provide a standardized view of a combined data model for the test tools. New developed GAMMA components are used to configure and visualize this data model and the test bench. Razorcat updated and provided the systems TRM, TOP, CCDL and ITE. TRM is a test run management server that was integrated with the GAMMA middleware for test execution. The CCDL test definition language was updated to better accommodate the needs of long running thermal tests. The TOP test operator client is the user interface for the test execution. The ITE server and client system is a test management tool that provides powerful features to design and evaluate requirements and tests that are then used to generate reports.
The first approach to integrate GAMMA and Beckhoff PLCs was to complex to handle and later replaced by an easy to configure and powerful solution. The partners RST and Razorcat are confident that the delivered solution enables the Flight Test Facility to be more productive while testing and reassembling the test chamber. It combines the application domains for automation and testing. The test tools provide an efficient and powerful workflow on top of a flexible and configurable automation layer."
