4/16/2026 at 11:07:14 PM
Interesting. Not clear what it really does. The hardware is an oscilloscope probe on a 3-axis CNC mechanism. That's called a "flying probe", and you can buy one.[1]Fine. But what does the AI do? It "ingests the project", but what does that mean? Finding all the pins? That's a start. Using a SPICE model to figure out what should be on each pin, and checking? Now that would be impressive. Probably something in between.
The usual use for this sort of thing is that you probe a known-good board to find out what voltages and signals appear where, and then compare with newly manufactured boards. That's a common production check.
There's potential here. If the AI has some concept of what the board under test is doing, and can diagnose problems, that's quite useful.
by Animats
4/17/2026 at 3:16:52 AM
I think the novel idea here is you jam some hardware together (whatever you like) that can do "physical real world" things with a well understood interface and then spin up Claude with access to it.The way I'm thinking about it is, it's a _workflow_ innovation?
So you ask for data sheets for all the visible chips and get PDFs in an output directory with minimal user interaction except to flip the board, ask for a basic idea of connectivity, get a stitched high res surface image etc.... which of course are all currently possible, but you can do them potentially with very low effort. There doesn't have to be a _software stack_ ahead of time. You ask Claude to do the thing, it will figure out how to do it, write some code, pull in some OSS and make the thing happen. You can take this project's software or leave it.
You might say "tell me where you think the JTAG headers are" and it will come up with a workflow to do its best at that task (most likely with variable results...), but nonetheless this is not a thing you can ask of any commercial product I am aware of today. With probes, stuff can get interesting.
Of course experienced hardware & reverse engineers already can do all this stuff and have a plethora of workflows for it but I still think it's an interesting POC of a generalisable approach. You can take or leave this particular software stack. Also, the hardware barely matters, you can duct tape whatever to whatever.
by xyzzy123
4/17/2026 at 4:19:09 AM
It's lower level than that. "It will probe the approved targets and report back." It has enough smarts to find the pins, and maybe it can read the text labels on some ICs, but that's about it. That eliminates much drudgery, though. And probably the job of some tech who did that by hand.by Animats
4/17/2026 at 10:22:25 AM
But there is no good reason you can't do that already. Hardware engineers have just been fundamentally unserious about computer use going on 20 years. The PCB design you could do in 2000 already, but now it's still PDF datasheets, people drawing footprints and connecting RX lines to RX lines.by stefan_
4/17/2026 at 3:01:59 PM
I gotta give the hardware team credit for programmable pins on μc though. It means you just need to bring the pins out to pads and do whatever, instead of each pin has a fixed function so pin 14 MUST go to the next thing. (Within reason; vcc and gnd can't move).by fragmede
4/17/2026 at 6:07:45 AM
What does it do with a single probe, though? You need two to actually probe anything, right?So I'm wondering how is the second probe problem dealth with. I've considered something similar but with small weight attached to a pogo pin, so the CNC arm could then just move it around, which would not be very easy to get completely reliable as there may be components on the board.
by _flux
4/17/2026 at 6:44:02 AM
Your common oscilloscope is common ground referenced. You attach to your test circuits ground with the typically black alligator clips coming off the probe and then read voltage at a point with the test lead. A decent differential probe like you might be thinking of usually costs about as much as a decent hobbyist oscilloscope.by s_m_t
4/17/2026 at 7:54:43 AM
Ah well that does simplify things significantly, I suppose it's probably still somewhat useful.But I'd expect a big part of the nets are not connected to the ground? I mean in my hobby designs a majority of them is, but let's say if you generously use decoupling capacitors, then that might not be the case?
by _flux
4/17/2026 at 5:21:08 PM
Decoupling capacitors don't remove the ground reference, they just allow high-frequency signals a faster path to ground.Typically, you need dedicated circuitry (and usually inductive coupling) to provide full isolation, but if the circuit is using this layout then you can still choose to ground the normally-isolated side for probing.
by Majromax
4/17/2026 at 5:57:33 PM
"the ground" ≠ "ground". It's unfortunate naming IMO, but "ground" is just the 0V reference point. A normal oscilloscope's ground probes are mains Earth referenced, that is they're connected to the "ground" pin in the outlet which in turn connects to one or more conductive rods buried in the Earth. Decoupling capacitors don't negate the ground reference, since they're connected between a power rail & circuit ground. So the power rail's voltage is still referenced to ground.A truly "floating" circuit would be something battery powered, or galvanically isolated from mains Earth (e.g. by an isolation transformer).
by SAI_Peregrinus
4/17/2026 at 4:10:27 AM
I believe the standard production check is more like you check continuity between known nets, given that you're the manufacturer, you already know where they are exposed, and therefore you can perform those checks before adding any components. Post component checks are a lot more complicated because active components and passive components will modify the visible voltages and characteristics, often to the point where you won't have the same degree of physical insight.I would assume once machines are set up that this is only really done if you're not confident of your manufacturing line for some reason (eg. maintenance, reconfiguration) or you are pushing limits somewhere, for example, particularly small vias or traces very close to the edge of the board.
To make this useful, you would want two flying probes because otherwise it's not going to be telling you much you don't already know.
by contingencies
4/17/2026 at 5:34:41 AM
That's a blank board test. This is straightforward given the netlist and Gerber files.[1] It's just a continuity check between known points. Does not require AI.[1] https://bayareacircuits.com/bare-printed-circuit-board-elect...
by Animats
4/17/2026 at 6:14:32 AM
Yes, manufacturing defined products, at least using known methods, does not require AI.Although, that doesn't stop people raising while pretending it does!
by contingencies
4/17/2026 at 2:58:33 AM
From my understanding is you’d probe the board during different operations, process the results and deduct what signals are useful and traffic transmitting across the board (I.E private keys, what protocols are used, debug interfaces, firmware components, chip functions, etc).by apimade
4/17/2026 at 4:01:22 AM
feels like the author is hallucinating an instant solution to a problem with scope size of "research team and five years" classby numpad0