Development of a flexible test platform for household appliance testing based on mobile agents

This paper describes an innovative and flexible test platform for the household appliances test based on mobile agents, in order to carry out efficient data collection and analysis and to assist products design by providing defective components identification. The diagnostic system is specifically designed for the life-test laboratories, in which the mobile agent performs several measurements on many products over a long period of time, using different sensors mounted on board of the platform. The architecture and realization of the test platform is illustrated and described in details, focusing on the aspects related with autonomous mobile agent development, such as: navigation and perception in an indoor highly structured environment with unpredictable minor changes, manipulation and physical interaction with the product, image recognition of the environment and of the product. A prototype test platform has been developed and the first results show that it is feasible and effective for the improvement of the level of automation and quality of a life-test laboratory.