Case 01 / 062026

Test Console

Automates power-amplifier tests, load pull, and RF sweeps. Reduced a three-day manual qualification procedure to about eight minutes.

3 days~8 min

The problem

Qualifying one unit meant driving five instruments by hand, transcribing readings between them, and losing most of a week.

Overview

A test rig that runs itself. The console connects to the device under test over BLE, drives a DC power analyzer, a network analyzer, a spectrum analyzer, a Mini-Circuits power sensor, an Arcus trombone motor and an Arduino RF switch, and walks a full power-amplifier characterisation without anyone standing at the bench writing numbers down.

FastAPI on the instrument side, React on the operator side. Every instrument is a wrapper behind one API, so a test sequence reads like a procedure rather than a pile of VISA calls. A preflight dialog checks the whole chain before a run starts, because discovering a missing driver an hour into a sweep is how afternoons disappear.

What it does

  1. 01Six devices driven in parallel over VISA, BLE, USB and serial
  2. 02Load-pull test with motorised RF trombone positioning
  3. 03Preflight check across drivers, VISA layer and instrument discovery
  4. 04Path-loss compensation applied per measurement, not after the fact
  5. 05Live progress and per-step logs while a sweep runs
  6. 06LoRa and LTE device paths behind one operator interface

Screens

Test Console CW workspace with transmit settings and measurement panels, shown with hardware disconnected
Test Console CW workspace with transmit settings and measurement panels, shown with hardware disconnected