Test-system design

Agilent Open, a program that simplifies test-system setup and integration by offering instruments based on open industry standards has been introduced by Agilent Technologies.

It offers a wide selection of products and services designed to minimise set-up time, reduce costs and speed new product development. The program has three key components: system-ready instruments, PC-standard I/O and open software.

System-ready instruments come with I/O (such as LAN and USB) and software that automatically configures, interfaces and discovers other instruments regardless of the manufacturer, and verifies instrument connections, reducing test set-up time to minutes; standard PC I/O interfaces such as LAN, USB and GPIB (general-purpose interface bus - the dominant 8 bit parallel I/O connection for test equipment and test systems) and a host of I/O converters simplify and accelerate the process of connecting test equipment; open software programming gives engineers the flexibility to develop test systems in programming languages they already know.