VADS – Vehicle Automated Diagnostic System
 

VADS was developed for the United States Marine Corps
to meet the need for general purpose electronic test equipment.
The VADS is used to test the condition of several types of
Marine Corps vehicles.

VADS consists of two major parts:

1. TAV (Test Adapter Vehicle)—the electronic test equipment
2. Accessory Kit—a collection of cables, probes, and adapters used to access the vehicle’s test points.

The LIT-designed TAV can measure voltage, resistance, and frequency on 90 different test points

• 84 of the test points have a range of 60V to -60V
• 6 of the test points have a range of 200V to -200V
• The switching configuration allows the user to “pick any two” points to measure, thus the TAV can respond to changing test requirements.

The LIT design made many improvements over the previous versions.

• Problems associated with mechanical parts were eliminated by using solid-state alternatives. Mechanical relays were replaced with solid-state MOSFET technology, and the mechanical hard drive was replaced with a solid-state flash disk hard drive. These changes improved the overall ruggedness of the TAV.
• The need for an external laptop to control the test fixture was eliminated by introducing a wireless touch-screen display for the user interface. This provided un-tethered control of the TAV.
• Simplified circuit board and cable connections made construction and repair much easier than previous versions.
• Reduced power consumption compared to previous versions.