Mini Robot for Calibration of Stopwatch/Timer

Abstract

Many industries use stopwatch/timer as instrument for measuring time in production process. To support the quality of product of industries, the stopwatch/timer should measure the time accurately. The accuracy of the stopwatch/timer can be known through calibration to a reference standard. Therefore, a stopwatch/timer should be calibrated first before used as instrument for measuring time. Research Center for Metrology (RCM) - LIPI as National Metrology Institute of Indonesia has responsibility to build measurement traceability in Indonesia, included measurement traceability for time. RCM - LIPI did calibration of stopwatch/timer manually. The operator responses in manual calibration that called as human reaction time contribute to inaccuracy of measurement result. Recently, an innovation for automation of calibration system of stopwatch/timer has been built to eliminate the human reaction time. The automation system has been designed and built using robotic arm and mini robot car. The aim of this system is to increase the efficiency and accuracy of stopwatch/timer calibration. The robotic arm is used to press the button of stopwatch/timer, and the mini robot car is used to press a reference standard universal counter The measurement result of time from the universal counter and stopwatch/timer are recorded automatically using a camera. The accuracy of the stopwatch/timer calibration has been increased by using the automation system. The system supports the improvement of the quality of industry products.