Additional Testing

Considering the different environments where a drone can perform an activity, the experience of ALTER TECHNOLOGY providing advice to different manufacturers and operator points to offer two complementary type of testing services: Environmental (Climatics and mechanical tests) and Cybersecurity, an innovative service under development due to its importance in the future U-space.

Environmental

Performing an environmental test means subjecting the device or system to certain environmental conditions (cold, dry heat, relative humidity, etc.) in order to check if the operational parameters remain within the range defined by the applicable regulations.

Through these tests it is intended to simulate and test the equipment and drones under severe climatic conditions. These tests allow the evaluation and qualification of drones and subsystems, as well as this environmental climatic testing provides a useful tool for evaluation, qualification, and screening of EEE components for high-reliability applications.

ALTER TECHNOLOGY is accredited by the National Spanish Accreditation Body (ENAC) to perform environmental tests on electronic equipment according to EN ISO / IEC 17025: 2000, scope 345 / LE1595. Additionally, Alter has experience testing space, military, and airborne equipment.

The facilities and capabilities of the engineers in charge of this section can design the necessary tools to perform vibration tests without damaging or compromising the systems due to reaching their resonance frequency, analyzing the components through different types of vibrations, and monitoring the devices electrically while running the test.

We have 6 climatic chambers in Tres Cantos to simulate storage, transport, and operational environment. Temperatures between -72 ºC and 180 ºC can be reached in some of them. In addition, situations of rain, dust, sand, solar radiation, thermal shocks, among others, can be simulated. All these tests can be applied to drones to verify their operation in various weather conditions.

Regarding vibration tests, we have 2 means of vibration testing. These devices, called shakers, can simulate sine and random forces, varying their working frequency and granting considerably high accelerations to simulate realistic scenarios to test drone systems and subsystems under demanding conditions.

Types of Environmental Tests

Sometimes it is required to know whether specific thermal operational characteristics of the device or system have been caused by determined environmental conditions or by the heat generated by the device or system itself. 

Alter Technology offers a range of services related to environmental testing. Our facilities can reproduce certain climatic conditions (salt-laden air, solar radiation, etc.) as well as some mechanical effects of the environment (vibration and impacts), allowing thus to evaluate the effect of environmental agents on the normal functioning of components, equipment, or systems:

Dust
Rain
Salt mist
Solar radiation
IP classification testing
Impact
Vibration
Vibration and temperature

Through these tests, it is possible to accelerate the degradation of the products by applying various types of stress. In addition, environmental vibration tests are performed to check the performance and structural integrity of the systems. Some of the magnitudes and tests measured in the laboratory are impact tests, humidity tests, temperature variations, hot and cold storage with monitored RH conditions, dry heat, temperature cycling, among others.

Alter Technology is accredited by the National Spanish Accreditation Body (ENAC) to perform environmental tests on electronic equipment according to EN ISO / IEC 17025: 2000, scope 345 / LE1595. Additionally, Alter has experience testing space, military, and airborne equipment.

Alter Technology has 6 climatic chambers in Tres Cantos to simulate storage, transport, and operational environment. Temperatures between -72 ºC and 180 ºC can be reached in some of them. In addition, situations of rain, dust, sand, solar radiation, thermal shocks, among others, can be simulated. All these tests can be applied to drones to verify their operation in various weather conditions.

Regarding vibration tests, Alter Technology has 2 means of vibration testing. These devices, called shakers, can simulate sine and random forces, varying their working frequency and granting considerably high accelerations to simulate realistic scenarios to test drone systems and subsystems under demanding conditions.