A Model-Based Approach for Testing Automotive Embedded Systems – A Preliminary Study

The automotive embedded systems are experiencing an increasing transformation to automated cyber–physical systems with an extended reliance on software. Guaranteeing the quality, reliability and safety of both single components and the entire vehicle is a tremendous challenge. They should not only comply with functional and performance requirements, interacting reliably with other real-time components, but also with stringent safety and reliability standards. It is distinguished from comparable software well-known from other devices, like mobile phones. In vehicles there are complex real-time interactions between different mechanical systems: braking, drive, suspension, steering. The automotive system is nothing like any other, characterized by rigorous planning, architecture, development, testing, validation and verification processes. This paper discusses a model-based approach to testing automotive embedded systems, particularly in the context of the occurrence of test result flickering, a phenomenon that affects the reliability, reproducibility and validity of embedded software testing. The aim of the research is to verify simplifications used in Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation during testing. The experiments carried out involved comparing test results from a simplified vehicle simulation and a model-based approach in the context of flickering results. A testing bench was designed, and real experiments were performed. The model-based approach is planned to be developed in the future, as the studies have demonstrated that it can be successfully applied to generate aberrations in the test system and to development of a methodology for test case design.