Robotic arm-based smart-lock verification

Developing the platform was a complex problem that spanned across multiple expertise areas. It involved robotic arms operating the lock from various angles and distances, sensors to detect flashing lights, and an integrating software suite to run the required tests, to name a few components. All components have to work cohesively in the platform. Hence it required deep expertise in robotics, sensors, application development, and testing.

We formed a team of engineers with experience in robotics automation, software development, and testing automation. The robotics engineer emulated the lock's operations using three robotic arms and RFID cards. The application developers implemented systems to update the lock's configuration data and sense its response to the actions performed using the arms (e.g., flashing led). The test automation engineers developed a suite to run the entire sequence of tests using the setup.

The team completed platform development and integrated it with the test suite in less than a year. We deployed the solution at the lab, where we have already used it to test many DSR releases. The platform has brought significant savings in effort and improvement in quality. It has also freed the test engineers from error-prone manual testing steps letting them focus on higher value-adding activities.