Testing Embedded Systems in the Automotive Industry with TTCN-3

In the automotive industry, the quality assurance of software-intensive systems is still characterized by high manual portions (i.e. a low level of automation) and a multiplicity of often proprietary test systems and test platforms. Test specifications are often weakly formalized and not standardized. In contrast to this, the AUTOSAR consortium opted for TTCN-3 to implement the AUTOSAR conformance test suites. AUTOSAR is founded by a majority of European and international car manufacturers and their suppliers to provide a standardized platform for software architectures and software components, which is currently established in the automotive industry. While AUTOSAR tests are based on the actual version of TTCN-3, a large number of automotive applications feature requirements (e.g. timed behavior, continuous behavior, closed loop control) that are not straightforward testable by means of TTCN-3. To overcome these limitations, a consortium from industry and academia started the research project "TEst specification and test Methodology for Embedded systems in Automobiles" (TEMEA). TEMEA started in spring 2008 and is targeted on developing a TTCN-3-based test specification and test implementation methodology for embedded systems in automobiles. This presentation will provide an overview on the actual status of the TEMEA project including our first results in the area of testing real time applications and continuous data streams with TTCN-3. We present a limited set of additional TTCN-3 concepts, which enable us to precisely define estimations on timed application and yield a solid basis for the definition and assessment of continuous data streams. The applicability of the concepts is demonstrated by small examples and a prototypical tool environment. Moreover, we will provide an outlook on future work, especially on the consolidation of additional concepts dedicated for testing and assessing hybrid systems and their temporal behavior.