written by: Fabian Suske

Approved and edited by: Carolina Barrera

Intro:

In order to fulfill the L2-8 subsystem requirement “Portability” an inspection has been carried out. This test followed the Verification and Validation Test Plan. This requirement is basically to ensure the arm can be operation for 20 minutes – as agreed, and justified in previous stated requirements.

 

Test Objective:

The test criteria that needs to be tested in this inspection is the following:

 

“Test Objective:  To successfully verify the L2-8 (Portability) requirement, the Prosthetic Arm battery system shall allow the user mobility, as to permit a 20 minute operation without constraining the user to a wired connection to the mains grid, or generation source.“[1]

 

This requirement goes along with duration, and both entail the success in the battery selection. If the team chose the right battery, then the arm will be able to operate for 20 minutes continuously, and ideally, it would not need to be recharged until the meal is finished. Therefore, the battery has been hooked up to the PCB and the both critical Voltages read.

 

Test Method

The test was set up in the following way:

• Battery
• PCB
• DMM

After the battery was hooked up, the DMM was used to measure the Voltage for 12V and 5V at the respective points. These readings are the power to the MCU and the motor. From the arm MCU there are wires that power the Hand’s MCU, and the motors in the wrist and fingers. This is the reason for having these two requirements for battery selection.

Figure 1 shows the mount of the battery inside the bicep, and Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the reading of the output voltages from the PCB.

Test Conclusion:

The first positive indication was that all status/power LED’s light up. This means the battery is able to provide at least 6 V to the Buck Converter. The following measurement ensured that the Voltage levels outputting the right values.

[1] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3qlnfB-grPcVzJOTTZyemZ2R3c