Sastra Robotics: Kerala-Built Robots That Test Electronic Devices Like Human Users

Modern electronic products are tested extensively before they reach the market. Software engineers examine code, electronic instruments measure signals and environmental chambers expose devices to heat, cold and humidity. Yet one important question remains difficult to automate:

How will the product behave when an actual person touches, presses, swipes, inserts, removes and repeatedly operates it?

Kerala-founded Sastra Robotics has developed specialised robotic manipulators to answer this question. Its machines physically interact with electronic devices in the same manner as human users, repeatedly touching screens, pressing buttons, swiping cards, entering PINs, operating switches and connecting or disconnecting power cables.

Unlike conventional factory robots that assemble products, Sastra’s systems are primarily designed to test completed devices and human-machine interfaces. The robot becomes a repeatable mechanical user that can perform thousands of physical actions while cameras and software observe how the device responds.

The result is an unusual Indian-developed technology positioned at the intersection of robotics, product testing, machine vision, electronics and industrial quality assurance.

From Kerala Engineering Project to International Robotics Business

Sastra Robotics was founded in Kerala in 2013 by Akhil A., Achu Wilson and Aronin P. The company began by developing a robotic system for the rapid functional testing of products and interfaces that had previously depended heavily on manual testing. A Kerala Startup Mission ecosystem report identifies Kochi as the company’s headquarters and describes Sastra as a developer of scalable robotic-testing systems for automotive, aviation, medical technology, banking, consumer electronics and smart-device applications.

The company was incubated at Maker Village in Kerala, where it used prototyping workshops, fabrication facilities, grants and industry connections to develop its early machines. The same Kerala Startup Mission report states that a 2019 memorandum with Lockheed Martin helped the company gain access to international markets.

Sastra’s current corporate structure requires some clarification. Its website says the company was founded in 2013 and that, during a global expansion in 2021, the United States-based SGBI Inc took over the Sastra Robotics business. The group now lists operations in India, the United States and the United Kingdom, while identifying Kochi as the headquarters of its robotic-development activities.

Sastra can therefore be described accurately as an Indian-founded robotics venture with substantial product development and engineering roots in Kerala, operating today within a wider international corporate structure.

Why Physical Device Testing Is Difficult

A software-testing tool can check whether an application opens correctly, whether a command returns the expected result or whether data moves properly between different parts of a system.

It cannot always determine whether:

• A touchscreen responds to different amounts of pressure
• A button becomes unreliable after repeated use
• A swipe gesture works across the entire display
• A payment terminal reads a card correctly
• A vehicle display responds while exposed to heat
• A power connector remains functional after repeated insertion
• A screen displays the correct icon after a physical action
• A device becomes dangerously warm during intensive operation

These are physical interactions. They require something that can touch the device, apply controlled force and observe the result.

Human testers can perform such actions, but manual testing has limitations. The speed, position, angle and pressure of each touch can change slightly from one test to the next. Fatigue affects long-duration testing, while repetitive operations consume skilled engineering time.

A robotic tester can perform the same motion repeatedly under controlled conditions. It can touch the same coordinate, apply a known force and maintain an exact duration for every test cycle.

This repeatability makes it easier for engineers to determine whether a failure originated inside the product rather than from variations in the person conducting the test.

A Robot That Acts as a Mechanical User

Sastra’s systems use robotic manipulators fitted with specialised fingers, styluses and accessories. The machines can be programmed to reproduce human interactions with physical equipment.

Depending on the product and configuration, these actions can include:

• Tapping a touchscreen
• Swiping and scrolling
• Touching and holding
• Double-tapping and flicking
• Performing multi-touch gestures
• Pressing physical keys
• Entering numbers on a keypad
• Operating side buttons
• Hovering above a screen
• Inserting or swiping payment cards
• Producing a signature on a payment terminal
• Connecting and disconnecting power
• Visually checking displayed text and icons

The robot can then repeat the complete sequence hundreds or thousands of times. This makes it useful for regression testing, endurance testing and reproducing faults that appear only after prolonged operation.

The technology is especially valuable when a manufacturer updates software without changing the physical device. The robot can run the same series of physical interactions on every new software release and compare the device’s behaviour with earlier results.

QUACO: Sastra’s Principal Testing Platform

Sastra’s flagship product family is known as QUACO.

QUACO combines a robotic manipulator, force-controlled fingers, machine vision and software for planning, running and recording physical tests. The platform is intended to function as a complete testing bench rather than merely as a standalone robot.

The company offers different configurations for different display sizes and testing requirements.

QUACO Pro S

QUACO Pro S uses a SCARA robotic architecture and is intended for high-speed testing of screens measuring up to 16.9 inches. The system includes a single-touch module, force-controlled fingers, haptic-testing capability and integrated computer vision.

SCARA robots are particularly suited to rapid horizontal movement. In a testing system, this allows the robotic finger to move quickly between icons, buttons and different regions of a display.

QUACO Pro D

QUACO Pro D uses a Cartesian robotic structure for larger screens measuring up to 24 inches. It supports multiple robotic fingers and gestures such as pinch and zoom, allowing it to reproduce interactions that require more than one point of contact.

Such a system can be used to test larger interfaces including vehicle infotainment screens, industrial-control panels, aviation displays and medical equipment.

Force-Controlled Robotic Fingers

One of the most important parts of Sastra’s technology is its force-controlled testing finger.

A robot that merely moves to a coordinate could strike a screen too strongly, fail to make proper contact or damage a delicate button. Effective testing therefore requires control not only over position, but also over the amount of force applied.

Force control allows the system to reproduce different types of touch:

• A light capacitive-screen tap
• A firm physical-button press
• A sustained touch-and-hold command
• Repeated operation of a keypad
• Pressure-sensitive interaction with a control surface

Controlled force also allows engineers to test the limits of a device. They can determine whether a touchscreen responds reliably to light contact or whether a button continues to function after thousands of presses.

Different stylus materials and tips can also be used to represent different kinds of human touch or different interface technologies.

Machine Vision Gives the Robot Eyes

Physical testing requires more than pressing a button. The system must also determine whether the device responded correctly.

Sastra uses computer-vision cameras and software to observe the product under test. Its QUACO software incorporates optical character recognition and icon-detection functions that can identify text, symbols and interface changes displayed on a screen.

For example, after the robot presses a payment button, the vision system can check whether the expected confirmation message appears. After entering a number, it can verify whether the correct digits are visible. After launching an application, it can check whether the required icon or menu has appeared.

This creates a closed testing sequence:

1. The robot performs a physical action.
2. The electronic device responds.
3. The camera observes the result.
4. The software interprets the displayed information.
5. The result is compared with the expected outcome.
6. The system records a pass, failure or anomaly.

The company also offers thermal-imaging additions that can observe heat distribution across a device. This can help engineers evaluate whether a phone, display or electronic unit develops excessive surface temperature during demanding operations.

TACBOT: A Portable Device-Testing Robot

Sastra’s TACBOT is a smaller tabletop system intended for smartphones, payment terminals, wearable electronics and other compact devices.

The robot can reproduce touchscreen interactions, hover gestures, side-button activation and power-cable connection or removal. Accessories can enable card insertion, card swiping, multi-key operation and visual evaluation.

The published product specifications describe two principal variants.

TACBOT Standard supports displays up to six inches and uses force-controlled fingers with selectable force levels. It operates as part of a connected test setup without integrated computer vision.

TACBOT Premium adds an onboard computer and integrated vision processing. Its finger force can be adjusted across a wider range, allowing more precise control of physical interaction.

The company lists tap, scroll, swipe, touch-and-hold, double-tap and flick among TACBOT’s supported actions. Its published specifications state a repeatability of ±0.5 millimetres and continuous operation for up to 360 hours under the specified configuration.

Testing Payment Terminals and ATMs

Banking terminals represent one of the clearest applications for physical robotic testing.

A point-of-sale machine combines several different technologies:

• Touchscreen or keypad input
• Chip-card insertion
• Magnetic-stripe reading
• Contactless payment
• PIN entry
• Signature capture
• Receipt printing
• Communication with banking networks

A software-only test may confirm that the payment application is functioning. It cannot fully reproduce the complete physical process experienced by a customer.

Sastra’s robotic system can press the touchscreen, insert or swipe cards, enter PINs, produce signature samples and use optical character recognition to check the printed or displayed result. The company also describes support for multiple test cards through card-multiplexer accessories.

The same principle can be applied to automated teller machines. A robotic test setup can repeatedly enter numbers, operate touchscreen menus, press physical buttons and interact with card slots while the software records the machine’s response.

Automotive Displays and Cockpit Interfaces

Modern vehicles contain increasingly complex human-machine interfaces. A single cockpit may include touchscreens, physical switches, rotary controls, digital instrument clusters and climate-control panels.

These interfaces must continue functioning despite vibration, changing temperatures, dust, humidity and long operating periods.

Sastra’s robotic platforms can test infotainment systems by touching, pressing and swiping controls in predefined sequences. The system can verify whether menus respond correctly, whether a control activates the expected function and whether the interface remains stable during repeated use.

The company has stated that its earlier SCARA-based platform could perform up to 800 touchscreen contacts per minute under applicable testing conditions. This is a company-published performance figure and may vary according to the specific test, configuration and required touch duration.

Robotic testing can also help reproduce intermittent faults. An interface that fails only after several thousand touches or during a particular sequence may be difficult for a human tester to diagnose consistently.

Testing Devices Inside Environmental Chambers

Electronic products must often operate in harsh conditions. Automotive displays may sit inside vehicles exposed to intense summer heat, while aviation or industrial equipment may face cold, moisture and rapid temperature changes.

Environmental chambers recreate these conditions by exposing devices to controlled heat, cold or humidity. Sending a human tester inside such a chamber is impractical and potentially dangerous.

Sastra developed Dimenzio Mini to operate a device physically while both the tester and the product remain inside an environmental chamber.

A published company brochure describes the system as capable of operating at temperatures up to 70°C and relative humidity reaching 90 per cent. The brochure also lists force-controlled operation, multiple single-finger gestures, accuracy of ±0.2 millimetres and repeatability of ±0.05 millimetres for the specified model.

This allows engineers to test whether a display, button or electronic control continues to respond while experiencing environmental stress.

The system could, for example, repeatedly operate an automotive touchscreen while the chamber simulates the temperature inside a vehicle parked under strong sunlight.

Testing Motion and Gyroscopic Sensors

Sastra’s product portfolio also includes TAFIN, which the company categorises as a gyro-sensor testing system. Gyroscopes and inertial sensors are used in smartphones, wearable devices, navigation equipment, gaming systems, vehicles and other products that respond to movement or orientation.

Testing such sensors requires controlled movement rather than merely touching a screen. A robotic platform can rotate or reposition the device through repeatable angles and motion sequences, allowing engineers to compare the sensor’s reported movement with the movement actually applied.

This can help identify problems involving calibration, drift, sensitivity or inconsistent response.

Connecting Physical Testing With Electronic Data

A major advantage of Sastra’s platform is its ability to link physical robotic actions with electronic feedback from the device.

The company describes support for interfaces such as I2C, SPI and UART when customers need to close the loop between a physical action and the product’s internal electronic response.

This means that the test system does not have to rely solely on what appears on the screen.

After pressing a control, the system may also read data from the device’s communication interface. Engineers can then determine whether the internal electronics registered the correct command, even when no visible output appears.

QUACO systems also support network communication, external general-purpose input and output ports and integration with equipment such as CAN simulators, signal generators, controllable power supplies and signal analysers.

This turns the robot into part of a broader hardware-in-the-loop testing environment.

Remote Laboratories and Continuous Testing

Sastra’s software allows test sequences to be planned, executed and monitored remotely. A testing machine located in a laboratory can therefore be accessed by engineers working from another building, city or country.

Remote access can be valuable when:

• Different engineering teams share expensive test equipment
• A company operates development centres in several countries
• Tests must continue outside normal working hours
• Access to a laboratory is restricted
• Engineers need to investigate a field failure remotely
• A device must remain inside an environmental chamber for extended periods

The robot can run predefined tests continuously and create reports for engineers to examine later.

This approach effectively converts a physical-testing bench into a remotely accessible laboratory resource.

Industries Served

Sastra identifies several industries for its robotic-testing technology:

• Automotive electronics
• Consumer appliances
• Smartphones and tablets
• Banking and financial technology
• Aviation electronics
• Medical devices
• Gaming equipment
• Wearable electronics

Within aviation, a system could test cockpit displays, control panels or in-flight entertainment interfaces. In medical technology, robotic interaction could be used to validate touchscreen controls and physical buttons on diagnostic or surgical equipment.

The importance of repeatability increases when a failed interface can affect safety, financial transactions or clinical operations.

Productivity and Endurance

Sastra argues that automated physical testing can greatly increase the number of test cases completed by a laboratory.

Based on data that the company says it collected from original-equipment manufacturers and Tier-1 suppliers, one manual tester may complete approximately 60 moderately complex test cases in a working day. Sastra estimates that a QUACO system operating continuously could execute at least 365,000 such test cases in a year, assuming approximately 1.5 minutes per test.

These are company calculations rather than independently audited performance guarantees. Actual productivity would depend on the complexity of the test, equipment setup, maintenance requirements, device-change time and the amount of human supervision required.

The larger benefit may nevertheless be clear: robotic systems can undertake repetitive operations while engineers concentrate on analysing failures and designing better tests.

Why This Technology Matters for Make in India

Sastra Robotics represents an important form of Indian product engineering because its machines help test other advanced products.

A physical-testing robot combines several complex fields:

• Precision mechanical design
• Motion-control electronics
• Robotic manipulators
• Force sensing
• Embedded systems
• Computer vision
• Optical character recognition
• Test-management software
• Industrial communications
• Data analysis

Developing these systems in India strengthens capabilities that can be reused in industrial automation, medical robotics, defence electronics, laboratory equipment and precision manufacturing.

The company’s Kerala origin is also significant. India’s deep-technology ecosystem is often associated primarily with Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and the National Capital Region. Sastra demonstrates that advanced robotics companies can also emerge from Kerala’s engineering, incubation and startup infrastructure.

Its journey through Maker Village illustrates how shared fabrication laboratories, prototyping facilities and institutional support can help convert an engineering concept into a commercially deployed machine.

Global Customers and Market Reach

Sastra’s website names Robert Bosch, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell among organisations associated with its business and states that it has completed more than 50 projects across multiple countries. These figures and customer references are company disclosures and should be treated as such unless individual contracts are separately announced by the customers.

The company also lists corporate addresses in India, the United States and the United Kingdom, reflecting its attempt to serve international manufacturers while maintaining engineering operations in Kochi.

Physical device testing is a global opportunity because every manufacturer of interactive electronics faces similar quality-control problems. The product under test may vary, but the fundamental need remains the same: reproduce human interaction accurately and verify the result.

Challenges Facing Robotic Testing

Robotic testing does not eliminate every difficulty in product validation.

A robot can reproduce predefined actions accurately, but real people behave unpredictably. They may touch a screen at an unusual angle, use wet fingers, press two controls accidentally or operate the product in ways that engineers never anticipated.

Testing systems must therefore support both carefully controlled sequences and randomised or exploratory actions.

Other challenges include:

• Adapting the robot to devices of different shapes and sizes
• Designing fixtures that hold products without damaging them
• Reproducing realistic variation in human touch
• Recognising changing screen designs
• Integrating with proprietary customer software
• Maintaining calibration over millions of movements
• Preventing false failures caused by reflections or camera conditions
• Demonstrating long-term reliability in industrial laboratories

A testing robot must also be easy to program. If every new device requires extensive robotics expertise, the time saved during testing may be lost during setup.

Sastra addresses this through test libraries, graphical tools and a one-click teaching function intended to let users train certain motions without writing conventional robot code.

A Robot That Does Not Build the Product—But Proves It Works

Most discussions about robotics focus on machines that weld vehicles, move warehouse goods or assemble electronic components.

Sastra Robotics has pursued a different role.

Its robots interact with the finished product and challenge it repeatedly. They press the same button thousands of times, swipe across the same screen, insert the same card and operate the same controls under carefully controlled conditions.

The robot’s purpose is not to manufacture the device. Its purpose is to find weaknesses before the customer does.

This makes Sastra one of the more unusual companies in India’s robotics ecosystem. It is building machines that imitate the ordinary physical actions of human users and convert those actions into measurable, repeatable engineering tests.

Conclusion

Sastra Robotics demonstrates how a specialised industrial problem can become the basis of a globally relevant Indian technology product.

Founded in Kerala, the company developed robotic manipulators capable of testing real electronic devices through human-like physical interaction. Its machines can touch screens, press controls, operate payment terminals, interact with connectors and observe the resulting response through cameras and software.

The QUACO platform provides complete robotic test benches for larger interfaces, while TACBOT offers a compact system for phones and payment devices. Dimenzio Mini extends testing into high-temperature and high-humidity chambers, and specialised platforms address motion-sensor and remote-laboratory requirements.

The company’s present international corporate structure means it should be described carefully as Indian-founded rather than assumed to be wholly Indian-owned. Its product-development foundation, however, remains closely connected with Kochi’s engineering and startup ecosystem.

Sastra’s greatest achievement lies in recognising that software automation alone cannot test every aspect of a modern electronic product. Sometimes a machine must physically touch another machine to discover whether it truly works.

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Reference Sources

1. Sastra Robotics — official company overview and testing platforms.
2. Sastra Robotics — company history and present corporate structure.
3. Sastra Robotics — QUACO Pro product platform and specifications.
4. Sastra Robotics — TACBOT features and technical specifications.
5. Sastra Robotics — product portfolio and industry applications.
6. Sastra Robotics — Dimenzio Mini environmental-testing brochure.
7. Kerala Startup Mission and Inc42 — State of Kerala Startup Ecosystem Report 2022.

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