February 8, 2026 - 1 min read
Embedded Validation Smoke Test Before Long Runs
A short preflight I run on embedded rigs before endurance or cycle testing.
Last updated: 2026-02-24
Preflight checks
- Verify power rails under startup and load transients.
- Confirm actuator direction and limit logic on hardware.
- Validate sensor scaling using a known reference.
- Run a 2-minute loop with logging enabled and check for dropped samples.
Log fields I always include
- UTC timestamp
- command state
- measured state
- error flag and code
- sample interval (
dt)
Why this matters
It prevents spending hours on endurance tests that fail because of basic integration mistakes.