USA: Lockheed Martin, ZTEC Instruments Ink eCASS Contract

ZTEC Instruments today announced that Lockheed Martin and Textron Systems AAI Corp selected the ZT4628 oscilloscope and ZT8442 RF/IF digitizerrespectively for the US Navy’s electronic Consolidated Automated Support System (eCASS) to test military aircraft on naval aircraft carriers and shore-based depots.

Under the eCASS program, the Navy will replace approximately 600 ship- and land-based CASS systems with about 340 new eCASS units. ZTEC instruments provide highly accurate measurement capabilities and a flexible, bus-agnostic approach to test that allows mil/aero contractors and system integrators to save time and money by capitalizing on the technical benefits of modular instruments without having to reconfigure an existing system to a new form factor.

The ZT4628 Oscilloscope for Improved Accuracy, Triggering, and Throughput

Lockheed Martin required an oscilloscope as a core eCASS instrument that would meet specific compatibility and performance requirements. They chose ZTEC because of the company’s ability to understand the demands of the application, extensive mil/aero industry knowledge, and experience with test systems.

The ZT4628 oscilloscope helps engineers across the mil/aero industry – including contractors and system integrators – modernize test systems with specifications including FFT capability, deep and segmented multi-capture memory, and increased measurement capability with waveform math and acquisition modes. The oscilloscope also offers comprehensive self-test and calibration functionality, and advanced analog and digital triggering.

With the ZT4628 oscilloscope, Lockheed Martin met both compatibility and performance requirements while spending 30% less than in the original RT-CASS solution. In addition, with ZTEC’s multi-platform approach, Lockheed Martin now can leverage their software development to other programs using its common core test software with other ZTEC modular oscilloscopes in PXI-, LXI-, VXI-, PCI- or hybrid-based systems.

The ZT8442 RF/IF Digitizer to Create a Synthetic Instrument

In the RF measurement equipment kit (MEK) for eCASS, AAI used the ZT8442 RF/IF digitizer in the LXI form factor to create a synthetic instrument, a group of hardware and software modules used in combination to emulate a piece of legacy electronic instrumentation. The flexibility of the ZT8442 RF/IF digitizer and driver software allowed AAI to emulate MTA functionality while maintaining compatibility with existing TPSs in eCASS. With industry-leading specifications and performance, the ZT8442 helped engineers develop test systems that are future-proof to address emerging requirements for testing new aircraft.

The ZT8440 Series RF/IF digitizers have the highest instantaneous IF bandwidth, lowest noise floor, and highest dynamic range available on the market today. These specifications, along with fast switching, all-digital frequency hopping, and highly flexible, real-time FPGA processing, make the ZT8441 one-channel and ZT8442 two-channel RF/IF digitizers ideal for a wide variety of applications in the commercial and military markets.

Award-Winning Device Will Serve Future RF Needs

The ZT8441 RF/IF digitizer was a finalist for the Test & Measurement World Best in Test award. Selected as a finalist because of its full-featured, on-instrument spectrum analyzer and unmatched technical specifications, the ZT8441 RF/IF digitizer is poised to supply the rapidly growing RF market with a world-class testing solution at a competitive price for complex applications like testing military aircraft and radar systems.

Product Specifications

ZT4628 Oscilloscope:

• PXI, LXI, VXI, PCI platform device
• 8 mVpp to 50 Vpp input range with +/- 250V offset
• 10 S/s – 2 GS/s sampling rates
• 500 MHz analog bandwidth
• 2.5 GS/s – 100 GS/s equivalent time sampling rates
• 256 M maximum capture length

ZT8442 RF/IF Digitizer:

• PXI, LXI, VXI, PCI platform device
• DC to 1 GHz frequency range
• 100 Hz to 160 MHz instantaneous IF bandwidth
• FPGA-based DDC with fractional resampling real-time signal processing
• 100 S/s to 400 MS/s alias-free sample rate
• Dual 400 MS/s 14-bit ADC
• More than 80 dBc spurious-free dynamic range
• RF/IF channels or dual I/Q inputs
• 512 MiB (up to 128 MiSamples of complex I/Q data pairs) memory
• +10 dBm maximum signal range

About ZTEC

ZTEC Instruments is a leading modular instrument company whose products include oscilloscopes, waveform generators, and RF and IF digitizers for applications in testing military/aerospace standards. ZTEC Instruments products provide powerful bench-top instrument capabilities in modular instrument form factors, including PXI, VXI, LXI and PCI.

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Source: PRNewswire, September 8, 2011;