Digital control and operation of DC power supplies for automatic test equipment

The role of instrumentation grade power supplies is usually reserved for those applications that require high-gain, high-resolution, smart power. These power supplies are often integrated into automatic test equipment (ATE) systems of enormous complexity. Applications abound in such diverse fields as automatic manufacturing, DOD test systems, temperature control units for large buildings, magnetic steering devices in beam particle accelerators, telemetry equipment and so on. Here, the author describes how these applications employ power supplies as a sort of DC signal generator to stimulate and read back information about the devices under test. Such applications are in sharp contrast to the usual role of a power supply as a passive supplier of voltage