The Case for Synthetic Instrumentation

A recent GAO study revealed that the Department of Defense (DOD) employs more than 400 unique types of test systems to test and diagnose anomalies in various DOD avionic and weapon systems [1]. DOD spent more than $50 billion in its acquisition and support of Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) from 1980 through 1992, and these procurements often resulted in a proliferation of special purpose testers designed to support a specific weapon system or group of Weapon Replaceable or Shop Replaceable Assemblies. The Navy alone has spent approximately $1.5 billion from fiscal years 1990 through 2002 in the acquisition of its primary family of testers (i.e., CASS) and plans to spend by 2007 an additional $430 million on acquisition, $584 million on Test Program Set (TPS) maintenance upgrades, and an additional $584 million to develop Test Program Sets for new weapon system testers. In addition, DOD and the services face growing concerns regarding obsolete ATE, given the high cost of modernizing or replacing this type of equipment. ATE acquired in the 1970s and 1980s is becoming increasingly out of date and more difficult to support, especially instruments for which equivalent form/fit/function replacements cannot be found in the Test and Measurement (T&M) marketplace. These obsolescence issues are further exacerbated by new technologies that in some cases make ATE obsolete even before the new testers can be fielded. The current situation has resulted in a pool of DOD testers that are old, often inflexible and special purpose, have large footprints, and in an aggregate are costly both to DOD and our taxpayers. The situation will not get much better in the out years unless DOD can affect test and measurement commonality across all of DOD that employ T&M technologies that are more generic/flexible, smaller, faster, less costly, easier to maintain/upgrade, and are less prone to become obsolete than conventional/discrete instrumentation technology.