Test Connections - September 2018

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MTS Marks 30 Years of Making Test Easy



30 Years of Making Test Easy
Since its founding as Geotest, Inc. in 1988, the company's singular focus has been to Make Test Easy for automated functional test customers by creating innovative solutions with unrivaled long-term support. With three decades of hardware, software and system design expertise, MTS has been at the forefront of the latest technology advances, providing ATE (Automated Test Equipment) hardware, software, and integrated test solutions that combine quality, performance, reduced footprint, and ease of use, while meeting and exceeding the demanding test requirements of today’s complex military, aerospace, and manufacturing environments.

Test Solutions for Mission-Critical Systems
Early integration projects included an environmental monitoring system for NASA’s Spacecraft Assembly Building at JPL, and a test system for water heaters to calculate the products’ annual energy consumption. ATEasy, the company's flagship software product and the test industry's most advanced test development and test executive suite was introduced in 1991 and many high-performance PC-based test instruments followed starting in 1992.  

MTS 30th Anniversary Logo


MTS Founders

Figure 1: Geotest, Inc. Founders, Circa 1991
L - R: Jacob Goldman, Loofie Gutterman, David Manor, Ron Yazma


The founders of Geotest (Figure 1) recognized both the emergence of PC-based instruments as the ideal future test platform, and the advantages of a modular approach to designing test solutions. This commitment to industry standard modular architectures led to early active participation in the PXI Systems Alliance (PXISA), of which Loofie Gutterman (MTS’ President) is currently the president. By 2004, Geotest’s PXI portfolio exceeded 100 products (Figure 2).

PXI Plug-Ins

Figure 2: PXI Plug-Ins

Today, the company’s GENASYS mixed-signal test platform (Figure 3) and suite of semiconductor test solutions (Figure 4) bring the advantages of the flexible, scalable, PXI architecture to leading-edge test applications for mission-critical, high-value products from sensors to vehicles, aircraft to satellites.

GENASYS, TS-960, MTEK

Figure 3: GENASYS Mixed-Signal Test Platform                      Figure 4: Semiconductor Test Solutions


In addition to modular instrumentation products, Geotest developed an expertise in the field of military and aerospace test that today enables the design of the most advanced weapons system test sets on the market, from the field/flightline to the depot. The first PC-based flightline armament tester for Hellfire Missile support was introduced in 1992 and was deployed worldwide by the U.S. Army by the mid 1990's, and the first depot-level test set was based on modular architecture and was first deployed in 1994.

After acquisition by The Marvin Group (which now includes Marvin Engineering Company, Marvin Land Systems, and Flyer Defense) in 1997, Geotest was initially named Geotest-Marvin Test Systems and eventually renamed in 2013 as Marvin Test Solutions (MTS). As a member of The Marvin Group, an award-winning military & aerospace group with more than 55 years of experience in the defense and commercial aerospace industries, Marvin Test Solutions has test systems deployed worldwide in support of most major military aircraft and munitions in use around the world.

Today, MTS continues to be actively involved in the development and delivery of advanced armament test solutions including products for the PATS-70A and BAT (Bomber Armament Tester) programs as well as providing state of the art flightline test solutions based on the MTS-3060 SmartCan™.  

Marvin Engineering Company (MEC) is the managing partner for the production of the lion's share of F-35 Alternate Mission Equipment (AME) to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. This AME includes most of the external stores carriage devices mounted on the aircraft or in the internal weapons bay. Some examples of this equipment are Air-to-Ground and Air-to-Air Pylons, Alternate Advanced Rail Launchers, many variations of Internal Weapons Bay Adapters and a variety of Aircraft Hardware Support Kits.

Working closely with MEC, Marvin Test Solutions currently provides test solutions used in production and depot test of F-35 AME (Figure 5) using the MTS-235.  MTS also provides potential warfighting enhancements to F-35 users in the form of an I-level version of the MTS-235 and O-level MTS-3060 test sets ready to support maintenance and sustainment as requirements evolve.

F-35 with armament

Figure 5: F-35 Lightning II with Ordnance and Alternate Mission Equipment


Beginning with the delivery of the Hellfire Missile system test set in 1992, MTS has developed and deployed a wide range of test solutions based on the PC / PXI architecture for flightline, backshop, and depot level test applications (Figure 6).

MTS Timeline

Figure 6: MTS Timeline


From its origins in 1988 to day, the company has grown from its four founders to over 100 strong (Figure 7). As we look to the next 30 years, our focus is still the same - We Make Test EasyTM.

MTS Group Photo

Figure 7: MTS Grows to Over 100 Strong