Development of a Tester System for External Car Door Handles
Initial situation and project task
Quality demands towards modern car locking systems are rather high and increase steadily. A car’s door knob has changed from a pure mechanical locking device to a complex mechatronic system.
On behalf of a customer, a tester system for external car door handles has been developed. The tester is a fully-automated end-of-line tester, conducting complete testing of door handles allowing for keyless entry. All products are checked for their colouring by means of suitable sensors. A communications test is conducted via LIN. A replicated human hand is used for testing the knobs reaction to a hand’s approach. A replicated finger is used for a locking test. In addition to that, the tester comprises a database connection and is able to label devices after successful testing.
Implementation and challenge
At the request of our customer, the tester software has been realized by means of NOFFZ’s LabVIEW framework. Facility automation has been implemented via Siemens SPC and has been integrated into LabVIEW via direct driver linking. The whole user prompting is displayed on a monitor, so that all parameters and information can be accessed and adjusted. Testing results are summarized as a report and passed to a superior database or rather to a data acquisition system.
The hardware concept has been properly discussed with the customer and the final choice is based on standard components by various suppliers. An automatic label printer for product labelling is included in the tester, as well. Furthermore, NOFFZ has developed a special rack system for signal conditioning and signal distribution.
The tester is able to conduct the following tests:
Quality demands towards modern car locking systems are rather high and increase steadily. A car’s door knob has changed from a pure mechanical locking device to a complex mechatronic system.
On behalf of a customer, a tester system for external car door handles has been developed. The tester is a fully-automated end-of-line tester, conducting complete testing of door handles allowing for keyless entry. All products are checked for their colouring by means of suitable sensors. A communications test is conducted via LIN. A replicated human hand is used for testing the knobs reaction to a hand’s approach. A replicated finger is used for a locking test. In addition to that, the tester comprises a database connection and is able to label devices after successful testing.
Implementation and challenge
At the request of our customer, the tester software has been realized by means of NOFFZ’s LabVIEW framework. Facility automation has been implemented via Siemens SPC and has been integrated into LabVIEW via direct driver linking. The whole user prompting is displayed on a monitor, so that all parameters and information can be accessed and adjusted. Testing results are summarized as a report and passed to a superior database or rather to a data acquisition system.
The hardware concept has been properly discussed with the customer and the final choice is based on standard components by various suppliers. An automatic label printer for product labelling is included in the tester, as well. Furthermore, NOFFZ has developed a special rack system for signal conditioning and signal distribution.
The tester is able to conduct the following tests:
- Color testing
- Identification (Acquisition of Ident Number, HW version, SW version, EEPRom state…)
- Testing of the electric’s reaction after a full approach of the replicated hand
- Locking test (Testing of the locking signal after activation by the replicated finger)
- Continuous locking test (Testing of the locking signal after continuous activation by the replicated finger)
- Impedance testing (Determination of the apparent impedance of the LF antenna)
- Determination of the resonance frequency of the LF antenna and of the DUT, determination of the noise immunity
- Storage of testing results to the data acquisition system
- Contact-free labelling of the DUT with an individual caption
Conclusion and future prospects
The implemented tester system allows for comprehensive functional testing of modern external car door knobs allowing for keyless entry. It is able to store of testing results to a database and to label properly tested devices.
According to increasing demands and additional testing scenarios, that system can be adapted and extended, modularly.