A new partnership aims to leverage AI to develop generative instrumentation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become ubiquitous, with countless applications used across multiple industries. In addition to chatbots, virtual assistants, cybersecurity, navigation, ride-sharing, and machine learning, it has also become widely adopted in finance, manufacturing, medicine, and content creation.
Into the sea of applications, software developers are working to develop another use for AI that will assist engineers with R&D, testing, and validation. It’s known as generative instrumentation (GI), an AI-powered testing approach that allows engineers to create custom instruments and configure complex test setups.
Similar in concept to generative AI (GA), which generates customized content (video, images, text, etc.) on demand, GI relies on natural language prompts to produce tools that enable real-time testing, measurement, and signal processing.
To speed the development of GI, Liquid Instruments, an Australian software company, announced a new partnership with global design leader Keysight Technologies, Inc. Along with the Australian Government’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), the company recently announced the close of its $50 million Series C funding round.
Testing and measuring
While this testing and measuring industry is not well known, it underpins so much of modern technology across a wide range of industries. Essentially, anyone developing technologies involving electronics, optics, acoustics, oscillations, and vibrations will require custom testing equipment at some point in the process.
This requires customized hardware and software to test and measure the data produced by real-world activity. As Shaddock explained to Interesting Engineering via Zoom:
The best way to think about it is that test and measurement equipment are the tools that engineers use to verify that technology actually works the way it’s supposed to. Anything in the physical world, really, that needs to be tested before it’s deployed.
The industry emerged in the early 20th century, with companies like Hewlett-Packard (HP) at the forefront. Today, the global Digital Signal Processor (DSP) industry is a foundational element of modern electronics and communications.
As of 2024, the DSP market was valued at approximately $10.1 billion and projected to reach $14.7 billion by 2029, driven largely by advancements in 5G technology, the Internet of Things (IoT), quantum computing, sensors, autonomous capability, and the integration of AI into hardware devices.
One box to rule them all?
Liquid Instruments was founded in 2014 by Professor Daniel Shaddock and researchers from the Australian National University (ANU). Shaddock and his colleagues founded the company to commercialize technology they developed for NASA’s Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.
Shaddock also contributed significantly to the Advanced LIGO project and led Australia’s involvement in NASA’s GRACE Follow-on (GRACE FO) mission. In addition, he was a co-author of the paper announcing the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves.
Breakthrough Victoria
Drawing on his vast experience in signal processing, Shaddock founded Liquid Instruments to address a problem he and his colleagues encountered in the industry. As he explained:
The big problem in the [industry], as I saw it, was that every application is different. A quantum physicist and a radar engineer might need very different pieces of equipment, and that means buying a different box for every job you want to do. And that became quite expensive. You have labs filled up with boxes that all do a single thing. They do it pretty well, but they just do that one thing.
To address this, he and his colleagues created a new test device that eliminated the need for many different boxes. The challenge, he noted, lay in how their components are built. Each contains hundreds or thousands of chips integrated into a circuit board, designed to do a specific function.
Instead, their device relies on Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology, an advanced silicon chip that can be reconfigured after manufacturing. Having worked at NASA JPL for many years, where FPGAs are widely used, Shaddock and many of the company’s co-founders were familiar with the technology
This enabled the company to develop a single box, named Moku, capable of replacing entire racks of traditional test equipment. This software-defined platform allows engineers to design and deploy custom measurement tools in minutes. As Shaddock said:
It really is a single device that can replace a whole lab of equipment for our users. And the cool thing is, it gets better over time, so every few months we can push out a new software update. And yeah, our users all get an extra capability that they didn’t have before.
Today, Moku is used by organizations like Apple, NASA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as well as top U.S. defense companies, national and university labs, and more.
Liquid Instruments
A big shift
This new partnership underscores a broader shift from fixed hardware to flexible, software-led systems. It also signals a shift where AI is beginning to move from software into the physical world. As Shaddock summarized:
It’s moving from labs full of equipment and single, fixed-function boxes to a much more dynamic, flexible arrangement where the instrument can be tailored to exactly what the engineer needs to do today, and then changed to do what they need to do tomorrow as well.
It was initially difficult to see how and where AI would fit into signal processing since test equipment must be reliable, repeatable, and traceable, which AI typically is not. Eventually, he and his colleagues realized that AI was not meant to be embedded in test equipment but used to design and customize it.
Within this industry, there are products for every imaginable application. But for those working on the cutting edge of technology, where things are being done for the first time, there aren’t any test devices yet because they haven’t been invented.
What’s more, the traditional testing approach was lengthy, beginning with hiring engineers to design circuit boards, managing the supply chain, fabricating printed circuit boards (PCBs), creating devices to house them, and having them delivered (sometimes from overseas). This end-to-end process could take the better part of a year.
In contrast, the new software-defined instrumentation, built on a very powerful FPGA and recent advances in AI, allows engineers to simply speak into a voice prompt, specify what they want their testing equipment to do, and create their own personalized instruments in less than an hour. Said Shaddock:
With this new technology, the users don’t need to wait for us to build what they want. They can build it themselves without any coding or hardware skills, just by explaining to our AI what they need. So it’s a big shift from this software-defined instrumentation to personalized instrumentation, where every engineer now gets the tools that they deserve.
Keysight Technologies
A new partnership
To accelerate the development of its platform, Liquid Instrument is partnering with Keysight Technologies, a major producer of test and signal-processing equipment. The company was founded in 2014 after spinning off from a former subsidiary of HP’s testing division.
Since then, they have become an S&P 500 company, producing electronic design automation (EDA) software, network visibility, cybersecurity solutions, manufacturing technology, and system-level simulation platforms. They also work closely with over 35 international engineering standards bodies to develop new standards and ensure accurate tests.
Some notable examples include Bluetooth SIG, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the WiFi Alliance, and Universal Serial Bus (USB).
According to Shaddock, the transition in testing and measurement is akin to what is happening worldwide with the shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Since this transition is just beginning, Liquid Instruments’ partnership with an industry leader like Keysight is a promising step towards realizing the technology. Said Shaddock:
They’re not just a leader of the industry; they invented the industry. So having this investment from Keysight really signals that this is not a niche technology. Many people believe this is the future of the industry. And this investment round will allow us to really pin our ears back and bring this to the world very quickly. Having Keysight invest in and partner with us is a really strong sign that they also believe this is a promising technology.
“The industry is shifting toward software-first and AI-enabled architectures,” said Joaquin Torrecilla, Vice President of Software Transformation at Keysight Technologies. Liquid Instruments extends this by using software and AI to directly shape hardware behavior, creating more adaptable instrumentation. Together with Keysight’s extensive portfolio, this enables more scalable and integrated test solutions.”
The partnership also recognizes the massive growth of AI, the IoT, and related industries. All require testing and measurement solutions to ensure that new products and technologies work. As these things grow increasingly complex and sophisticated, testing needs to scale with them.
The new GI platform will use software to rewrite hardware. Keysight Technologies/Anastasika
For many years, the conventional approach involved taking hardware and wrapping a thin layer of software around it. In contrast, Shaddock and his team have done the opposite, designing software that reaches down to the silicon level and manipulates its structure. In essence, it is what Shaddock describes as “software rewriting silicon.”
The Australian Government’s involvement through the NRFC also reflects a desire to see the country become a global player in the commercial technology space. With a $15 billion budget, the corporation was established to invest in projects that build industrial capability, drive innovation, and support national interests while also speeding the transition towards sustainability and green technology.
“Liquid Instruments exemplifies the kind of high-impact innovation that strengthens sovereign capability while competing on the world stage,” said Mary Manning, CIO at the NRFC. And as Shaddock noted:
One of the things we are doing is manufacturing all of our hardware in Australia, which is fairly unusual and something many governments are interested in. Hopefully, we’re blazing a new trail for Australian scale-up companies in the tech space. And I’m really pleased with the support that we’re getting both here and from investors abroad.
