AUSTIN, TX -- National Instruments today released its annual Automated Test Outlook highlighting the company's research into the latest test and measurement technologies and methodologies.

The report examines trends affecting industries such as aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer electronics, semiconductor, telecommunications and transportation. Engineers and managers can use the report to take advantage of the latest strategies and best practices for optimizing any test organization.

The trends were assessed based on feedback from NI's customer base of more than 35,000 companies worldwide.

Automated Test Outlook 2013 covers the following trends:

Test Economics: New investment models force test departments to rethink the way they measure success.
Big Analog Data: Industry leaders leverage IT infrastructures and analytic tools to make faster decisions on test data.
Software-Centric Ecosystems: Open, software-centric ecosystems greatly impact the value derived from automated test systems.
Test Software Quality: Engineers use software development best practices to ensure test system reliability for complex systems.
Moore's Law Meets RF: New technology and instrumentation platforms drive up performance and drive down the cost of RF test equipment.

The annual outlook is always good for debunking a few myths. One trend NI notes is a greater use of analog and mixed signal functions. "The digital world is not driving analog signal processing to extinction. In fact, just the opposite is occurring," says David Robertson, vice president, analog technology, Analog Devices.

The Automated Test Outlook is based on input from academic and industry research, user forums and surveys, business intelligence and customer advisory board reviews. With this data as its foundation, the report delivers a broad representation of the next generation of trends for meeting the business and technical challenges in test and measurement.