The Technical Centre has been carefully laid out to provide well equipped laboratories for product development, and a suite of dedicated testing equipment. The Centre has been carefully established to design and test kit for marine and maritime applications, reducing set-up time and costs for each test and reducing time to market.
Testing equipment for marine use is a long and laborious process - a full environmental test can take up to a month to complete. The Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre has six areas where accelerated testing can be undertaken safely, and the results fully monitored and logged
Lilley & Gillie has equipped its Technical Centre with a specially designed anechoic chamber. The chamber provides a shielded environment in which equipment can be tested to ensure it complies with electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) regulations and legislation.
Speed sensing transducers designed for immersion in sea water must withstand extensive periods in this environment without maintenance and operate satisfactorily in different sea water conditions. The team at the Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre has designed and built a rotating tank that simulates the effects of a fitted transducer moving through sea water at speeds of up to 12 knots. Lamina water flow conditions, free from aeration and cavitation, are best for the correct operation of an EM transducer. The test tank, as well as providing such conditions, can also simulate adverse conditions at the sensing face of the transducer by controlling its position relative to the water flow. This gives a better understanding of the operational capability of the transducer under test and will help to develop new generation electronics and improve standards of transducer design.
This tank is believed to be the only one of its kind in the world. It uses a robotic arm, controlled by specially written software, to place equipment under test within the water flow. The performance of the equipment is constantly monitored throughout the duration of the test.
Electronic equipment carried aboard ships must be able to withstand electronic interference and severe discharges, such as lightning strikes. Lightning strikes can be simulated by subjecting equipment to electrostatic discharges of up to 15,000 volts. The ESD Room has been equipped with an earthed metallic floor and tables, and a electrostatic discharge test gun that produces carefully measured discharges. The equipment being tested can be fully monitored throughout the test, although standard EN 60945 only requires that equipment should be able to continue working after such a discharge.
There are many other stray currents found aboard a ship, not least of which can be currents induced by cathodic corrosion protection systems. Stray currents, although small, can induce long-term, slow growth corrosion in some electronic components and equipment casings. Accelerated environmental testing enables the Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre to simulate such conditions and monitor the performance of equipment under test.
Modern solid-state electronic equipment suffers far less from vibration than its predecessors, but must still be able to withstand the rigours of a working life aboard a ship on the high seas. Vibration can be induced by many sources, not just from engines and ancillary equipment - simply moving though the water causes vibration. At the same time, vibrations can be induced in any plane, which changes as the vessel pitches and rolls.
The EN 60945 standard requires that electronic equipment must be able to survive vibration induced in any plane, regardless of the plane in which the equipment is to be mounted. The Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre is equipped with two vibration tables, enabling navigation equipment to be tested in any plane. Again, the equipment must continue to work flawlessly throughout the test and afterwards, and monitoring equipment is able to confirm this.
Modern bridge equipment is becoming more and more sophisticated, but holds out the promise of better performance than ever before. Lighting conditions on the bridge of a ship can go from full sunlight during the day to total darkness at night, and display screens have to be readable in all conditions. ECDIS systems, which display charts on which colours are used to differentiate similar objects, need to be able to provide accurate colour matches. In addition, the brightness of items such as status indicators and backlit switches need to be checked to ensure that they do not affect the mariner's dark-adapted vision at night.
Modern bridge equipment is becoming more and more sophisticated, but holds out the promise of better performance than ever before. Lighting conditions on the bridge of a ship can go from full sunlight during the day to total darkness at night, and display screens have to be readable in all conditions. ECDIS systems, which display charts on which colours are used to differentiate similar objects, need to be able to provide accurate colour matches. In addition, the brightness of items such as status indicators and backlit switches need to be checked to ensure that they do not affect the mariner's dark-adapted vision at night.
Lilley & Gillie is using precision instrumentation in its optical laboratory to design displays to meet the stringent brightness and colour requirements for marine use. This is believed to be the only such purpose-built laboratory in Europe dedicated to proving marine display equipment.
The reliability of product software is fundamental. With the increase in product functionality and application diversity, no amount of testing alone will ensure that software is completely free from defects.
Working with RET (rare event techniques) and static code analysis, the development team at the Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre aims to produce application code with target failure rates that meet or better safety integrity level (SIL) 3. As a comparison, SIL 4 is the level required for software running a nuclear power plant!
In a joint venture with TTE Systems Ltd, a spin-out company from the University of Leicester, Lilley & Gillie is developing a reliable embedded software development platform that will ensure software reliability, commonality and maintainability across all Lilley & Gillie hardware.