Robots as card reader testers mean better quality

More importantly, this article looks at how robotic quality assurance (RQA) testing has helped us achieve our market leading zero fault reading.

In a previous article, Robots, part of the Y Soft team, we looked at how our team of robots help us to better support both employees and customers. We take the quality of our products and solutions very seriously and so we carry out robust robot testing of both our software and hardware.

Robot Testing Explained

To demonstrate how we use robots to test card reader fault tolerance, let’s look at a recent example using the Xerox AltaLink C8055.


 

Card Reader Fault Tolerance Test scenario

For our card readers, the test scenario is a simple three step process.



Because the robot behaves autonomously, there is no human requirement. This enables testing to run 24/7 over a pre-defined test period, in this case, fourteen days. The scenario is repeated again and again and any errors in logging in or out of the multifunctional device (MFD) are compiled after each cycle.

Over the course of fourteen days, approximately 200,000 authentications are made, and this accounts for around 400,000 card swipes. Our robots are able to authenticate in an average time of one second per authentication, about ten authentications (20 swipes) per minute. This means that the robot is able to complete 15,000 authentications a day, significantly more than a human is able to complete.

However, it isn’t just about speed. If humans were carrying out the testing, it would also be difficult to attain the same level of detail in the results which is the ultimately the information that helps us improve fault tolerance levels.





Once the test is complete for one card technology, we swap the cards and repeat the test. It is thanks to this robust robotic testing that we can achieve our market leading zero fault reading.

Learn more about our USB Card Readers and the technologies we support.