The challenge in the "High-Speed Testing System" project was to develop a highly scalable test automation solution capable of electrically, mechanically, and optically testing and packaging more than 10 million parking sensors per year — fully automatically. Despite the small size of the sensor housings, the quality requirements are exceptionally high: all contact pins are tested for continuity and short circuits, pin lengths must not deviate by more than 0.2 mm, and optical inspections require accuracy down to a few hundredths of a millimeter.
The design and technical development of the testing system were carried out in close collaboration with Promotech, with a particular focus on speed and accuracy. Components such as Beckhoff’s XTS system and Stäubli robots ensure short cycle times and high precision. For the optical inspections, we use four GigE cameras from Balluff. Selecting the appropriate lenses and lighting systems was a major challenge due to the stringent quality requirements. The technical implementation includes PC-based PLCs, modern software development, and machine learning approaches.
The EOL testing system now inspects several million parking sensors per year and performs self-validation every hour using a dedicated dummy check. Special MSA modes enable fully automated quality verification routines for validating the inspection systems. For example, a part can be tested 50 times in succession at the push of a button, with the measurement results — such as pin length data — automatically exported in both JSON and Excel formats.
More information about this project can also be found in our LinkedIn blog post.
