With the rapid development of the intelligent connected car market, major OEMs have launched automotive products with rich intelligent driving functions in order to enhance product competitiveness and meet consumer demand, but at the same time, software iteration in the process of rapid product upgrades has also brought considerable challenges to the safety testing of intelligent driving controller functions. How to carry out efficient testing in the process of rapid software updates, discover software bugs in advance, and shorten the software development and testing cycle has become a major pain point for major OEMs in software development and testing. In this regard, Polelink has brought a new solution to introduce the smoke test into the HiL test environment to solve the testing pain points brought by software version iteration.

What is smoke testing? What are the advantages of smoke testing?

Smoke Testing is a preliminary verification method in software testing, also known as Build Verification Testing. The concept originated in the field of hardware testing and was originally used to describe the initial testing of electronic circuit boards. If the board does not smoke when energized, i.e., if it does not short-circuit or overheat, then it is ready to move on to more in-depth testing. In the software field, the concept has been extended to a quick functional verification of a newly built version of software. Smoke testing typically involves testing the basic functionality of software systems to ensure that they work properly. The purpose of smoke testing is to identify software problems early and avoid investing too many resources in a version that simply doesn't work during the subsequent detailed testing phase.

Smoke testing is a concise and fast testing process after a software release. Its main purpose is to test whether the current software can work properly, and to screen out problems that may lead to serious errors or crashes in advance, before the software is tested in detail. So what are the advantages of smoke testing?

1. Usually the content of the smoke test is concise and clear, and does not focus on the detailed testing of individual functions, which makes its time cost low, and by discovering the problems in advance, it also avoids wasting a lot of time in the full-scale testing.

2. If the newly released software can not pass the smoke test, it means that there are serious defects in the software, and the software that can not pass the smoke test will not be able to carry out subsequent comprehensive testing, thus reducing the number of unnecessary testing rounds.

3. Problems discovered through smoke testing can effectively avoid potential chain reactions in subsequent tests, resulting in puzzling bugs or affecting other normal functions in the test.

4. Through the introduction of smoke test, the smart driving controller software development can be used as a key control point to improve the quality of software, software development and software testing efficiency, but also to reduce the software development and testing of unnecessary risks.

How do I start a smoke test? What is the basic process of smoke testing?

Introduced smoke test in the smart driving software, you can also refer to the basic process of smoke test to start the smart driving software smoke test, usually the process of smoke test is not complex, the test process will contain the following key links:

1. Determine the scope of the test: in the smart driving software release to determine the basic functions of the software and the necessary test area, the basic function of the test needs to cover the core functions of the software, such as the controller's high-voltage power-up, the bottom of the underlying software function and so on.

2. Design smoke test cases: according to the scope of the test, we need to write or select a set of key and representative test cases, these cases should be able to cover the basic functions of the software and the main process.

3. Prepare the test environment: in the smart driving software smoke test, you need to ensure that the current smart driving software controller hardware peripheral test environment is normal, including the normal operation of the controller software power supply environment, CAN/CAN FD network communication environment, ETH communication environment and so on.

4. Execute smoke test: according to the developed smoke test cases, the corresponding test work can be performed when the test environment is ready. During the test execution, the test results of each smoke test case need to be recorded, including the passing status of the use case and the reasons for failure.

5. Evaluate the test results: If all or most of the critical test cases pass, the controller can be considered to have passed the smoke test and can proceed to the next step of system testing or integration testing. If the critical smoke test cases can not be passed, the smoke test does not pass, the software will be returned to the developer to fix the problem, and then again to perform smoke testing.

6. Feedback and Iteration: Through the smoke test results, testers can provide detailed test reports and test records to the software development team and assist developers in locating problems.

The necessity for Intelligent Driving Software Smoke Testing and Integration Solutions

Introducing smoke testing in HiL testing can rationally utilize HiL's simulation resources and reduce unnecessary testing time and cost. Combined with the automatic testing function in HiL environment, the introduction of smoke test can minimize the testing risk and save the testing cost while guaranteeing the software quality.

In order to cope with the application scenarios of introducing smoke testing into HiL testing, Polelink also provides integrated solutions including the automatic brushing of smart driving software, automatic creation of test tasks, automatic execution of test cases, automatic correlation of test reports, automatic feedback of test results, and so on. In the smoke test solution, the controller will form a closed loop with the peripheral environment of the simulation of the frame, through the test management software CANoe management of power control, bus simulation and other environments in the frame, through CANoe remote control VT7001A power board card to control the on-board programmable power supply for the controller to provide the power environment, but also simulate the power supply abnormality to simulate different working conditions of the software work.

In order to provide the necessary test environment for the controller under test, CANoe provides CAN/CAN FD, LIN, SOME/IP, TCP/UDP and other protocol networks for the controller by configuring the network communication hardware, such as VN16xx series and VN56xx series, to realize the different communication requirements of the controller, so as to provide a stable smoke test environment for the Smart Driver software. In order to cope with the demand for controller software brushing and writing caused by the rapid iteration of software, Polelink provides the self-developed test management platform PAVELINK, which provides controller software version management, software online brushing and writing, software test task planning, test task execution and other functions for the smoke test system.

After the new version of software is released, developers can upload the software version to the PAVELINK server platform. After the new version of software is released, PAVELINK will perform the smoke test task, and will read back the current controller software version every time the controller software version is flashed, after confirming that the controller software version meets the flashing requirements, PAVELINK will automatically complete the flashing of the controller software, and PAVELINK supports to call the API interfaces for different flashing tools to complete the software flashing. If the software supports CAN flashing, PAVELINK can call the system resources to flashing and upgrading the current controller. If the new software fails to write, PAVELINK will return the error code and restore the previous version of the software.

After the software is successfully brushed and written, PAVELINK will automatically create test tasks and call the CANoe test management software in the bench environment as well as the automated test software vTESTstudio to execute the automatic smoke test program. For example, controller high-voltage up and down power function test, shift function test, sensor data base processing, etc.. In order to facilitate the modification of test cases, PAVELINK supports users to import Excel test cases and associate with vTESTstudio automated test scripts to complete automated test execution and report back.

The results of the smoke test will be sent to the software developers and testers by email or other communication software. If the software does not pass the smoke test, the smoke test system will return a new version of the software, and the developers can re-update the software and release it again according to the smoke test report, and the newly released software will re-execute a complete round of the smoke test process until the software passes the smoke test.

Through the introduction of smoke testing, testers can have a good control of the current state of the released software before formal testing, developers can also quickly locate software defects through the smoke test report to realize the rapid and accurate modification of bugs, smoke testing improves the efficiency of the communication between the team at the same time, it also shortens the entire software testing cycle.

Summary

Smoke test plays a very important role in the whole software life cycle, and introducing smoke test in HiL functional safety test environment will greatly improve the test execution efficiency and resource utilization. The introduction of a test management platform and automatic testing solution in the ADAS HiL integration solution provided by Polelink will greatly improve the testing efficiency of the ADAS smoke test and allow the smoke test to give full play to its efficient and convenient advantages without taking up too many resources. In the era of the rapid development of intelligent networked vehicles, Polelink will also provide more and more advantageous solutions to inject new power into the smart driving market!