4 reasons to avoid writing test cases in Excel
I once heard someone say: “It’s impossible to develop a software tool that isn’t a competitor to Excel”. And that’s also true when it comes to the creation of test cases for testing embedded software. Over the past 20 years, Excel has been a very popular format and language to create, manage and store test […]
Simulink Interface Concepts
In Model-based Development and Embedded Software Engineering, the growing complexity requires concepts like modularization, ease of maintenance, or module reusability. In this context it is crucial to understand the interface in Simulink, which is defined by the data flow into and out of a subsystem. This blog article gives an overview about the different interfaces […]
Automatic Test of AUTOSAR Code Replacement Library Routines at Ford Motor Company
The Journey – from idea to solution It seems like every day more and more software teams are developing software in a model-based way, using Simulink models and auto-generated c-code… and Ford is no different. Many low-level math and interpolation routines have been developed by the central software team as libraries that can be used […]
3 Reasons to Consider Using a Floating-Point Model to Generate Fixed-Point Code
Despite the availability of fast processors with dedicated floating-point support, we still see many projects generating fixed-point code from Simulink. The reason for this is not only the resource usage, but also the more transparent and predictable mathematical behavior. You can read more about this in our previous articles “What you should know about fixed-point” […]
What You Should Know About Fixed-Point Code
Vocabulary: Floating-point code? – Fixed-point code? – Scaling? – Resolution? – LSB? Basically, we can distinguish between two kinds of datatypes in embedded code: Floating-point and Integer. An integer variable basically represents whole numbers and the value range is limited by the number of bits. For example, an (unsigned) 8bit Integer can represent 2^8=256 different values, by default […]
When and how to generate test cases automatically
The automatic test case generation has always been a controversial topic. While some people dream about stopping any manual test activities others say that test generation is not allowed. But who is right? Test Goals for automatic test case generation Let’s have a quick look at the possible test goals for which we can generate […]
Modular Model-based Software Architecture for Efficient Unit and Integration Test
Model-based design (MBD) is well established in automotive to develop embedded software but with the growing size and complexity of software, handling big sized model is often a challenge. MBD enables to easily craft a software application and from one step to another refine it, test it and generate the production code. However, it’s risky to start […]
4 Ways to Detect Undesired Changes During a Tool Version Migration
4) Software Requirements in ISO 26262 chapter 6 Software requirements are the result of a transformation process of the TSRs allocated to software parts and the HSIs into a set of requirements used to develop the software functions. In parallel, hardware requirements are also derived to develop the hardware elements. Software requirements describe the static […]
Should I test the Model or the Code?
Model-based software development (MBD) with tools like Simulink and TargetLink in the automotive industry has grown over the past years and is a well-established development methodology today. Despite all the advantages, it can’t be denied that MBD introduces one additional step in the development process. In addition to the production C code there is also […]
What are the differences between functional and structural test cases?
When it comes to unit testing in automotive industries, the first use case most people have in mind is functional testing. Basically, this means to take all requirements that belong to a certain unit and write test cases to verify if the unit works as expected. However, there are also structural test cases that are […]