Mr. Ellis has over three decades of broad technical and management experience in Aerospace and Electronics, with over twenty five years of direct involvement in maintenance testing of almost every military aircraft and numerous other weapons systems.  He has management the development of eight major ATE systems and over one thousand Test Program Sets (TPS). As President of his own consulting company, Test Automation Inc., he has acted as a consultant for numerous government and aerospace organizations for over twenty years.  Mr. Ellis is currently employed by Northrop Grumman as Product Line Manager for all the corporation’s Ring Laser and Zero-Lock Gyro Navigation Systems.  He runs and lectures at the annual IEEE AUTOTESTCON Seminar Program, has published approximately forty technical papers and over one hundred articles on test technology and management.  He served as US Editor for “Test!” magazine for many years. Mr. Ellis holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) from Northern Polytechnic., London, UK., and an M.S. from Long Island University.  He is the recipient of the IEEE AUTOTESTCON Frank McGinnis Memorial Award for lifetime contributions to ATE technology and the National Defense Industrial Association John Slattery Memorial Award for innovation and integrity in test.


Contact Information:

Northrop Grumman Corporation
Phone (818) 715-2944
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Tutorial:

Automated Testing
This tutorial cover a multitude of aspects of automated testing in the Intermediate and Depot-level military maintenance environment.  The tutorial can be structured around specific organization interests and is based on a series of lectures conducted around the world and at IEEE conferences.  These lectures have been attended by over 2,500 attendees to-date and are scheduled for future AESS Conferences through 2012.  All topics stress practical applications and can include:  Automated Testing Technology, Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) Languages, COTS Application to ATE, Future Technology Applications to ATE, Test Program Set Development Management, Test Program Set Acceptance Testing.

Lecture:

Obsolescence - The Underside of the COTS Iceberg
When Commercial Off  The Shelf technology was first applied to military systems, it was viewed by many as a panacea, offering low-cost coupled with reduced NRE and rapid time-to-market.  Now that we have well over a decade or so of COTS applications under our belt it is clear that there is no “free lunch” and that, while COTS is a fairly new solution to many of our challenges, it also offers its fair share of new problems.  This one hour lecture examines some of those problems and offers some thoughts on potential solutions.

The lecture offers a brief COTS introduction and then takes attendees on a “field trip” to an actual COTS obsolescence upgrade program.  The program involved a computer replacement, instrument upgrade and rehost of approximately 400KSLOC of real-time, concurrent, asynchronous software code on a complex missile test system.  The field trip allows attendees to visit many of the problems that were experienced en route, together with their cause, effect and occasional mitigation..  To provide a little entertainment, Grandmother will tag along to review the COTS lessons in the light of “conventional wisdom” and offer intermittent commentary.