Development Of Radar Test System Based On PXI/LXI Bus

The radar is widely used in weapons system for precise positioning goals.Obviously, the radar is the most critical part of the weapon system, and itsperformance impacts the weapon system directly. Nowadays, radar technique isdeveloping rapidly. Radar on the aircraft has the characteristics of miniaturizationand high resolution. No product can be separated from the test system. Therefore,the study of automatic test system of radar is very important. It can protect thedevelopment and production of radar, improve the efficiency of the radar test andprovide a reliable means for the maintenance of weapon systems.First, this paper puts forward the demand of the radar test, and then analysesthe radar test system features and classifies the test requirement. We find out thatfour kinds of measurement signals are needed, they are slowly varying signal, fastvarying signal, RF signal and communication signal. In order to facilitate thetesting system maintenance, we put forward the overall program for the radar testsystem which is based on PXI and LXI bus platform. The entire test system containsPXI chassis, Signal Transfer chassis, Power chassis, Self Test chassis, Echo SignalSimulator and moving target bracket. Furthermore, PXI chassis contains anembedded controller, PXI low-speed data acquisition card, PXI medium-speed dataacquisition card and PXI communication card. After demonstration and analysis,four kinds of measurement signals we mentioned previously can be measured withthis system. Thus we make it possible for the basic electrical parametersmeasurement of radar and its communication interface, such as1553Bcommunication interface,422communication interface which is used to contactwith Echo Signal Simulator and moving target bracket. Finally, the system also hadthe advantages of modularization, miniaturization.This paper introdused the hardware in detail, such as low-speed dataacquisition card, communication card, Signal Transfer chassis and so on.Low-speed data acquisition card uses a universal modular design, which canachieve a40-channel parallel data acquisition. communication card can achieve multiple functions such as1553B communication and asynchronous422communication. It can dynamically configure the communication cycle, make theEcho Signal Simulator, moving target bracket and radar to be measured work insynchronization mode. Signal Transfer chassis is a typical example of conversion toa common platform by a dedicated platform. It can classify the measured signalwhich would be easier to get into the modular test system. Moreover, the SignalTransfer chassis also can achieve the measurement of the voltage and currentcondition of the power supply signal and radio frequency signal.The software used in the radar automatic test system is developed withLabWindows/CVI platform. The driver for hardware is also developed in VISAsystem. With ODBC technology we can change the automatic testing process whilethe technical software is unchanged. Multi-thread technology is used to achieveMulti-level software design. The entire test software consists of four modules,which are test management software, instrument driver software, manual testingsoftware and automatic test software. The structure is divided based on the dataflow of the entire software. The modularized design can meet the versatility,portability requirements easily.The test result of combination of test system showed that the system cancomplete the test requirements of radar and meet the technical requirements of radartechnical indicators.