Aeroflex announced the commercial availability in Europe of its new Synthetic Multifunction Adaptable Reconfigurable Test Environment (SMART^E™). Delivering on the flexibility and modularity that synthetic test systems have promised, but never quite achieved, SMART^E introduces a new, truly synthetic test environment that includes hardware, software, test practices and support required by customers for a complete test solution.

SMART^E is based on Aeroflex’s fifth generation synthetic technology. Aeroflex has a successful track record, more than a decade long, of providing synthetic test systems to meet the high-throughput, high-performance test requirements for radar applications, satellite payloads and T/R (transmit/receive) modules and subsystems for phased-array radar antennas. In this fifth generation, the proprietary synthetic chassis has evolved to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) LXI modules and now supports multiple vendors and multiple industry standard platforms (LXI, PXI, cPCI, GPIB).

“Aeroflex’s SMART^E synthetic test system provides a highly integrated, complete-solution environment. Other solutions are merely a collection of synthetic or conventional bench instruments with integration and system-level support left to outside system integrators, or even the customer himself,” said Francesco Lupinetti, vice president and general manager, Aeroflex Synthetic Systems Division. “SMART^E is unique to the market because it includes configurable modules encompassing the best hardware available from any vendor to solve test challenges. It offers a complete system-level software environment with highly reliable, optimally integrated test procedures and practices, and fast response global support. The result is a unique, state-of-the-art, synthetic, mixed-signal RF and microwave test environment.”

The SMART^E 5000 synthetic test environment can readily and efficiently adapt to test applications in electronic warfare (EW); radar; communication, navigation and identification (CNI); military automated test equipment (ATE) and general purpose microwave test applications. Modular integration of COTS system components, including emulation of discrete conventional instruments via synthetic hardware and software, enable SMART^E to seamlessly adapt to application challenges. SMART^E provides the best match to the problem at hand, including supporting legacy instrumentation.