Testing APERTIF DCU boards

© ASTRON

In April 2016, the last batch of WSRT/APERTIF DCU boards was delivered. The DC Power tests were done by the assembling company. To allow automatic testing, monitoring IC's were implemented on the boards, so we could read out the voltages and temperatures with I2C.

The RF tests were done at ASTRON to allow RF engineers to be involved in searching for errors in defective modules. These errors were written on rework labels, which are visible in one of the pictures. To allow automatic testing here also, the RF measurement equipment was interfaced using GPIB. The measurement results were then compared with the limit dataset. The result showed the condition of the board (OK or REJECT).

The last step was to assemble the DCU racks. They have a network (RJ45) interface. The racks were controlled by means of python test scripts, which made use of the official APERTIF software on the APERTIF server.