NightHawk™ was developed to solve the problem of “No Fault Found” (NFF) instances in electronic subsystems in aircraft. NFFs occur when a performance problem exists, but conventional testing does not find or indicate a problem. Initially developed, tested and validated on the Air Force VDATS system, NightHawk™ was subsequently implemented into various Automated Test Equipment (ATE) clusters. NightHawk functionality can be ported to the Navy’s eCASS platform to provide additional tools to improve test coverage of key electronic subsystems in Naval Aircraft to provide modern test and logging data analytic tools to handle aging aircraft problems and prolong the sustainability of the fleet.
NightHawk can significantly reduce the Mean-Time-to-Repair (MTTR) – up to 60% – by pinpointing the specific electronic circuit boards that are defective, but still pass the legacy TPS tests. NightHawk can benefit both the military (NAVAIR, Air Force, Army Aviation) as well as commercial aircraft fleet operators such as FedEx World Services and other commercial airlines.
NightHawk Enhancements to Conventional Automated Test Equipment Shortcomings
Test program sets (TPSs) currently used to test and debug electronic problems on aircraft are largely developed by OEMs that support acceptance requirements of their subsystems decades earlier. With operation of the aircraft over decades in harsh environments, encompassing shock, vibration, lightning strikes and temperature extremes, the components in the subsystems can drift from their original values. These variations can cause “soft faults” that go undetected by the original TPS, so NightHawk was developed to root-out these difficult-to-detect performance anomalies using advanced anomaly detection.
These analysis capabilities rely on time and frequency-domain test software for thorough analysis of aging avionics and weapon systems that have been subjected to harsh environments, failures caused by parameter drift, and component degradation, all of which can result in elusive, intermittent ‘soft faults’ that negatively impact the mission objective and increase lifecycle maintenance costs.
According to Doug Goodman, CEO of Ridgetop, “We are very fortunate to have such a World-Renowned Researcher and key contributor having the background and depth of knowledge in our field of advanced diagnostics and prognostics. His technical leadership has helped Ridgetop expand its 
At Ridgetop, Dr. Szidarovszky was instrumental in the development of the 
Ridgetop is certified as category 1A under the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) as part of the Trusted Supplier Program. Ridgetop has history of designing analog and mixed signal ICs for demanding applications in space satellites that are subjected to extreme temperatures and radiation. Our designs have utilized bulk CMOS, CMOS-SOI, and SiGe at process geometries down to 28 nm channel lengths. Radiation hardness is also a concern, and Ridgetop has addressed those requirements as well. A recent Ridgetop design was delivered to ON Semiconductor for the U.S. Air Force STELLAR Star Tracker.
Under contract to NASA, Ridgetop designed an effective 3-axis wireless rotational sensor. The RotoSense™ sensor has been tested on fast-spinning pinion gears on helicopter gear boxes, and also rolling stock for railroad safety improvements.