Enabling communication between ATLAS environment with an integrated subsystem

Technology upgrades bring about the need for fielded ATLAS-based environments to expand tests to include modern high speed digital systems. The ATLAS test language does not contain innate capability to describe new tests, so TPS developers use NAM or FEP constructs as the mechanism to communicate with an external system. An external system, such as a self-contained, fully-integrated instruments within a PXIe Express chassis that includes a dedicated PC controller, is available to provide such high speed serial bus tests. While these subsystems can be integrated with an existing test system that has a Windows-based computer, additional work is needed to enable the integrated subsystem to communicate with the ATLAS operating environment. The ATLAS Host API was developed to address both needs; new or existing TPS´s in the ATLAS environment are enabled to interact with a subsystem that provides new test capability, and the subsystem can use a test controller based in ATLAS. The work serves as an example that an existing test system can be extended to support new test applications, while demonstrating a client-server based architecture of a subsystem can be extended to support a new operating system in a straightforward way. This paper will describe the clientserver extension on the integrated subsystem, the ATLAS Host API executed as FEP on ATLAS, the specifics of communication of composing commands and processing responses, and some examples. This paper will also discuss the considerations behind the architecture and challenges in the development and implementation.