LCA Plugin for Test Automation

Introduction

The Keysight Test Automation on PathWave (TAP) software provides powerful, flexible and extensible test sequence and test plan creation with additional capabilities that optimize your test software development and overall performance. Keysight TAP is a modern Microsoft .NET-based application that can be used stand-alone or in combination with higher-level test executive software environments. Leveraging C# and the power of Microsoft Visual Studio, TAP is not just another programming language. It’s a platform upon which you can build your test solutions, maximizing your team’s productivity by using your existing software development tools and infrastructure.

Architecture

Included with Keysight TAP is the core sequencing engine, tools and plugins to minimize your test system development time and test execution speed. The LCA plugin provides test steps for frequency-dependent measurements of optical transponder devices (optical to electrical O/E, electrical to optical E/O and optical to optical O/O) with the N437x family of PNA-based Lightwave Component Analyzers. A template for display of the results in the TAP Results Viewer also simplifies effective use of the instrument.

LCA TAP Plugin Overview

With the Keysight LCA, the frequency-dependent S-parameters of devices for fiberoptic transceivers are measured. From these results, performance parameters like the absolute responsivity and bandwidth are determined. The instrumentation combines a PNA network analyzer with calibrated optical transponders and software to configure the measurement and calibration data. For automation, the full functionality and flexibility of the PNA are exposed and used together with the automation interface for the LCA software itself.

The LCA plugin simplifies automation by providing easy-to-use measurement steps for the integrated LCA that handle the details for configuring the instrumentation and LCA software. The flexibility of configuring workflow with sequences of steps and coordination with other instruments and resources using TAP is a powerful contribution to enhancing efficiency in test development and throughput. The plugin also provides a template for the display of commonly required results from the LCA.

Installation

The details needed to install and use the TAP software are given in the plugin help file. Briefly this entails the following steps.

• Installing PNA Proxy from the PNA on the measurement PC
• Downloading and installing TAP version 8.8 (KS8400A) and the LCA plugin
• Installing the purchased or temporary evaluation TAP licenses (N4370P01B)
• Configuring the DCOM settings on the PC for remote access to the PNA
• Then starting TAP and adding the LCA with PNA as Instrument
• Adding TAP Results Listeners: SQLite for display in Results Viewer and CSV for file storage