Kawasaki Robot to Test Near Field Communication Use Cases

German smart card testing company Comprion will use a robotic arm to simulate use cases of Near Field Communication technology, which is used in some contactless and mobile payment schemes.

The company says the robot, which emulates natural movements like the swipe of a hand near a card reader, will speed testing for NFC Forum standards. The NFC Forum has 30 test cases, but more than 3,500 test executions given the variety of antenna positions and card reader parameters.

The Comprion robot uses technology from Kawasaki. "We chose to integrate the Kawasaki robot as they have over 50 years of experience in robotics. The robot is [extraordinarily] exact and reliable and keeps these properties in long-term use," says Hajo Sandschneider, head of NFC and interoperability at Comprion, in a Dec. 18 press release. "This helps our customers to create precise results even after 3,500 test runs or more."

Google Wallet and the telecom-led Isis mobile wallet use NFC to execute mobile payments, though other mobile wallets, such as PayPal and Starbucks, favor a software-based approach, such as displaying a bar code on a phone's screen. The code can be read by hardware at the point of sale.