A unified framework for automated inspection of handheld safety critical devices in production assemblies

Abstract Due to portability and ease of usage, handheld devices are widely used in various safety critical industrial applications. A failure in such devices either can endanger life of human(s) or can lead to substantial economic/environmental damage. Therefore, production inspection of handheld safety critical devices requires rigorous verification and validation prior to a field deployment to gain certain level of assurance. The research is aimed at devising a unified inspection framework for automated inspection of hardware, software and mechanical characteristics of handheld safety critical devices in production assemblies for smooth integration of all the required tools and technologies. The framework provides system and process level integration of all the stages of the inspection lifecycle for an end-to-end automated production inspection system. The testbeds are geared towards for reusability, flexibility and configurability of all the resources across various inspection stages. AVI (Automated Visual Inspection) system which exhibit specific characteristics is a core component of the proposed framework. The specific characteristics of the AVI system, a generalized architecture of the handheld safety critical devices for which the proposed framework is applicable. Also an integrated production inspection lifecycle for production assemblies of handheld safety critical devices is presented in this research paper.