Darwin in automotive testing

For processes that are controlled by embedded systems, more and more software is needed in vehicles that has to be put through its paces in order to ensure safety and reliability. In a modern car, this software often contains more than ten million lines of software code. The difficulty is to define meaningful tests to eliminate as many potential failure causes as possible already in the software test phase. An evolutionary approach might provide the right test for the right situation.

In a joint effort, Berner & Mattner and the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) of the University College London (UCL) are developing methods for the evolutionary generation of test scenarios for the automotive industry. Berner & Mattner was already involved in the fundamental research within the European EvoTest project and is now working together with UCL CREST to further develop the technology for industrial applications. A predominant goal of evolutionary testing is to automatically select the most demanding test scenarios.

 (Prof. Mark Harman, Courtesy of UCL)

Professor Mark Harman, director of the UCL CREST, comments: »Using Darwin's theory of evolution, we can generate exceptionally demanding test cases. We create a virtual world in which car testing scenarios have to compete with one another. In this world of test scenarios, a test case has to be demanding in order to survive. This survival of the fittest has the effect of generating especially interesting test cases to be used in testing the automotive software.«

Dr. Joachim Wegener of Berner & Mattner explains the economic importance of the project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)  in the UK: »Testing is one of the most costly activities within the development of embedded systems. Search-based testing techniques have the potential to fully automate the testing of embedded systems. This will allow for significant cost savings and increased product quality. Our cooperation with UCL is aimed at further developing these technologies for a regular usage in industrial practice.«

Comments

[Joachim Schlosser]

Great story. Let's hope that this does not (again) lead to evolutionary customer experiences.
Do you know what framework they use for the evolutionary search? I hope they don't waste research money by implementing a framework given there is already a MATLAB-based available...

[Marisa Robles Consée]

I understand that B&M uses their own framework - they may not be Mathworks (Haven't we met at this years' embedded world, Dr. Schlosser? :-) ) but they do have some years of experience with model-based development. As far as I remember they even have a partnership with Mathworks since 2009. So one can assume that Matlab somewhere has a finger in the pie...

[Joachim Schlosser]

I'd assume so, yes...

[car loans]

I am interested on how they tweak the onboard programs for these ICU and CPU's. Like the Central Locking System.