The testing and verification techniques and tools developed and disseminated within the cluster have relevance and potential impact on literally all industrial sectors developing or using embedded systems solutions. Within the Strategic Research Agenda of the ARTEMIS research platform Design Methods and Tools is one of the three research priorities put forward. Here model- and component-based approaches are proposed as necessary for coping with the growing complexity of systems while meeting “time-to-market” requirements. Methods and tools for testing and verification are to play a central role in the ARTEMIS research strategy, as can be seen from the following citations:
- “.. methods and tools for simulation, automatic validation and proving, and virtual Verification and Validation (V&V). Methods and tools for developing product lines of embedded systems.”
- “.. reduce the cost of the system design by 50%. Matured product family technologies will enable a much higher degree of strategic reuse of all artifacts, while component technology will permit predictable assembly of Embedded Systems.”
- “.. achieve 50% reduction in development cycles. Design excellence will aim to reach a goal of “right first time, every time” by 2016, including Validation, Verification and certification (to the same and higher standards as today).”
- “..manage a complexity increase of 100% with 20% effort reduction. The capability to manage uncertainty in the design process and to maintain independent hardware and software upgradeability all along the life cycle will be crucial.”
- “.. reduce by 50% the effort and time required for re-validation and recertification after change, so that they are linearly related to the changes in functionality.”
The industrial needs for improved tools and methods for system validation have also been witnessed by a number of industrial case-studies and projects using model-based testing and verification carried out by the individual partners. Detailed information of these (and others) is to be found in the ARTIST2 Open Repository for Test and Verification Case Studies (
https://bugsy.grid.aau.dk/artist2) and include:
Danfoss (Aalborg): The continuation (From February 2006, to approx. January 2007) emphasizes automated testing. The project has two main goals. One is to develop an automated test execution environment for system level testing of the EKC series refrigeration controllers. The other is to improve model-based online testing given the experiences from the first trials
Ericsson Telebit (Aalborg): The goal of this project has been to use Live Sequence Charts in a model-driven approach to the testing of TCP/IP internet protocols. Live Sequence Charts are used to capture (informal) RFC in a formal, yet intuitive, way.
Ericsson (Uppsala): In this project we have worked on a case study where a model-based approach to black-box testing is applied to verify that a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway conforms to its specification. The WAP gateway is developed by Ericsson and used in mobile telephone networks to connect mobile phones with the Internet.
Felix Ingrat at the LAAS Laboratory in Toulouse, France (Verimag). Advanced Methods for Autonomous Embedded Systems. In this project the monitoring and test generation technology and tools developed within the ARTIST2 Testing and Verification cluster is applied to case studies provided by this group.
TK Systemtest (Aalborg): From timed automata design models the verification engine of UPPAAL is used for off-line generation of test-sequences which covers the model. In the project a tool for translating these logical test-sequences to test-scripts executable in QTP of Mercury’s Test Director. The resulting tool-chain has been applied to automatic testing of web-services of TDC (Danish Telecom).
Skov A/S (Aalborg): The goal of the project is to evaluate automated model-based testing of selected parts of Skov’s climate controllers, with the aim of improving testing practices at Skov as well as improving the research on model-based development conducted at CISS.
ESI (Embedded Systems Institute, Eindhoven) has carried out (is carrying out) large industrial case studies with Océ, ASML, Philips Semiconductors (now NXP), Philips Medical Systems, Vanderlande Industries.