A Study on TCal (Touchless Calibration): Contribution to Metrology for Industry 4.0

Abstract

In 2018, as contribution to the area of calibrations in Industry 4.0, the novel concept of Touchless Calibration (TCal) was introduced. In this paper, a study, accompanied by explanations, results, uncertainty and cost-benefit analysis, followed by practical experiment for the validation of TCal in the area of DC voltage calibrations are presented. Touchless Calibration (TCal) is introduced as a future development in calibration metrology on the XXII IMEKO Congress in Belfast in 2018. TCal is dealing mostly with decreasing the steps necessary to provide calibration traceability. Missing steps actually contribute to considerable decreasing of time and costs of calibration keeping the calibration traceability on high level. In the scope of Metrology for Industry 4.0, it could be one of the important improvements bringing increased effectiveness and efficiency for manufacturing industry.

It is shown by this study, implementing the worst-case scenarios, that TCal can be used in manufacturing companies for the calibration of any measurement system used to measure DC voltages in the range from 0 V to 10 V with tolerances (USL – LSL) bigger than 0.44825 V (± 0.22413 V).