Bachelor and Master Theses

To apply for conducting this thesis, please contact the thesis supervisor(s).
Title: Developing and evaluating a prototype for passive testing for Volvo Construction Equipment's embedded system
Subject: Computer science, Embedded systems, Robotics, Software engineering
Level: Advanced
Description:

Rigorous testing of combinations of functions (aka integration testing) in an embedded system, such as Volvo Construction Equipment’s heavy machines, is a necessity for improving overall product quality. But it is difficult, partly due to the need of new test cases for the nearly infinite combinations of functions and driving scenarios.

Since software testing already accounts for up to 60% of the software development cost and the execution time in test rigs (aka test systems or simulators or digital twins) is expensive, one way forward is to run test cases more in parallel. Moreover, test cases must be reusable in different driving scenarios to cover more combinations of functions.  

One solution is to express the test logic in a new way so that it can be executed in parallel, independently of other tests and independent of the input stimuli. This would allow reusing the test logic for different sequences or drive scenarios. Passive testing [1][2][3] is one such approach.

Previous work on passive testing by Flemström et al. [4] has resulted in an open-source implementation named as Napkin Studio [5]. In this tool a user can express executable requirements in a minimalistic language (T-EARS) [6] [7].

Following Napkin Studio, this thesis project shall develop a passive testing prototype on Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE’s) requirements coming from the testing of one of their embedded electronic systems. The thesis consists of following broad activities, which should be refined in the early weeks of project start:

Translation:

  • Translation of human-written VCE requirements in T-EARS language [6] [7] using the defined language constructs.

Tooling:

  • Utilizing or extending Napkin Studio on VCE requirements/logs to build a prototype of passive testing.

    • Investigate how to exchange requirements-data with VCE’s internal tooling. (optionally implement the exchange)

    • Implement VCE log files’ ingestion into Napkin Studio.

Evaluation:

 

  • In joint discussion with VCE/MDU, evaluate the prototype for testing effectiveness and possibly other attributes like requirements quality assurance

     

    References:

     

    [1] Losif Itkin and Rostislav Yavorskiy. “Overview of Applications of Passive Testing Techniques” (2019). https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2478/paper9.pdf

    [2] David Lee, Arun N. Netravali, Krishan K. Sabnani, Binay Sugla, and Ajita John. "Passive testing and applications to network management." In Proceedings 1997 International Conference on Network Protocols, pp. 113-122. IEEE, 1997.

    [3] M. Tabourier, A. Cavalli, Passive testing and application to the GSM-MAP protocol, Information and Software Technology, Volume 41, Issues 11–12, 1999, Pages 813-821.

    [4] D. Flemström, "Industrial System Level Test Automation" - (Doctoral Thesis 2021) https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1593696&dswid=762

    [5] https://bitbucket.org/danielFlemstrom/napkin/src/main/notes.md

    [6] Daniel  Flemström, Henrik Jonsson, Eduard P. Enoiu and Wasif Afzal, "Industrial Scale Passive Testing with T-EARS," 2021 14th IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), 2021.

    [7] D. Flemström, E. Enoiu, W. Azal, D. Sundmark, T. Gustafsson, A. Kobetski, "From Natural Language Requirements to Independent Guarded Assertions", (QRS'18).

    Helpful videos:

     
Start date:
End date:
Prerequisites:

Updating NAPKIN studio requires Python and Java Script knowledge. 

Scientific knowledge in software testing, research methods and academic writing.
IDT supervisors: Wasif Afzal Eduard Paul Enoiu
Examiner:
Comments:
Company contact:

Company contact: Daniel Flemström (RISE) daniel.flemstrom@ri.se & Mikael Back (Volvo CE) Mikael.ej.Back@volvo.com