Robotic Computer-aided Tuning

Fig. 1 RoboCAT system at COM DEV.

COM DEV Ltd. uses a RoboCAT (Robotic Computer-aided Tuning) automation system to achieve scaleable capacity, increased product consistency, in-line quality assurance, and reduced schedule and cost. Figure 1 shows a RoboCAT system at work at COM DEV. The company is the world’s leading supplier of filters, multiplexers and switches for communications satellites (see Figure 2). For more than twenty years, the company has made significant investments in its software design tools and RF performance simulation capability. These tools have been validated on satellite hardware and have proven to be so precise that extremely demanding devices can now be machined directly for space flight production without the need for a costly, time-consuming breadboard stage. Still, final tuning is required to remove the effects of machining tolerance and, to a smaller extent, simulation inaccuracies. RoboCAT addresses this challenge with a combination of advanced automated tuning algorithms and clever automation tools.

Fig. 2 COM DEV hardware for spaceand ground-based applications.

The final tuning stage has traditionally been an unpredictable bottleneck in the production of high frequency precision filters and multiplexers. RF filter tuning is a learned skill, and new hires require many months or years to become proficient at tuning even the simplest devices. Among experienced tuners there is a wide variation in the speed at which they are able to produce finely tuned hardware, as well as in their ability to tackle sensitive hardware. Therefore, device tuning is a potential source of schedule and cost risk, as well as an impediment to rapid changes in production capacity.