Case Studies

Strobe Light Testing

Strobe light
Posted in Consumer Goods, Embedded Development & Programming, LabVIEW, Test & Measurement Automation

Summary

DMC developed software and provided electrical hardware for testing strobe lights. The system tests a bank of strobe lights to ensure that all lights strobe synchronously to prevent the triggering of epileptic seizures caused by erratic strobe pulses.  DMC's solution for this project included both developing an embedded piece of hardware that detects strobe activity and a PC based LabVIEW application that reads and records the strobe signals and determines the pass/fail result.

Strobe Light Test

Strobe Light Test

Solution

As the strobe fires, the embedded detector circuit produces a digital pulse which is captured by the data acquisition board. The time between consecutive pulses is measured and compared to acceptable, operator-set values. Any pulses outside of these values signify an erratic strobe pattern and cause the test to fail. The test time can be adjusted by the operator, and each bad pulse is logged to file for report generation. The embedded detector device has an additional test mode, in which it produces accurately spaced pulses to simulate an ideal strobe light. This is useful for setting up, calibrating, and debugging the system.

Customer Benefits

  • Automated test system reduces test execution time and improves test reliability
  • Intuitive interface reduces test setup time
  • Simulation mode allows quick debugging of strobe and test equipment faults

Technologies

  • National Instruments LabVIEW®
  • National Instruments PC-MIO-16E data acquisition board
  • Microchip Inc. PIC16F84 microcontroller