The United States Marine Corps required a test system that could test and diagnose defective electronic assemblies in the field. The system had to be capable of spanning the diverse test requirements of the various combat vehicles used by the Marines, yet it had to be rugged and transportable for deployment in battlefield situations. The Third Echelon Test System (TETS) was developed for this purpose, and it was designed from the ground up to incorporate best-in-class VXI instrumentation. Teradyne’s M9-Series DTI was selected for integration into TETS by the Marines and the Prime contractor, Mantech, for the digital functional test and diagnostics requirements.

Hundreds of TETS systems have been deployed and TPS’s developed for rapidly pinpointing defective electronics, thereby maximizing the availability of combat vehicles to the fighting force. TETS systems are used extensively for Intermediate-Level testing, and in factories by Prime and Sub-contractors to test and repair electronic assemblies prior to integration into weapon systems and combat vehicles used by the US Marines.

As with several other US DoD tester standardization initiatives, Teradyne’s VXI instrumentation was the obvious choice for TETS:

• High performance, repeatable test functionality
• High density packaging to minimize VXI slot space, yet meet the channel count requirements
• Rugged and reliable with capability to withstand transport on the back of a vehicle
• Software programming tools to facilitate development and debug of TPS programs
• Diagnostics capable of pinpointing down to faulty component to accelerate repair & return of assembly to the field