EU research project looks into testing of distributed functions over the Internet

Embedded systems are increasingly networked with the internet. An example is the steady development of car-to-x services in the automotive industry. In order to roll out this type of applications on a broad scale, automatic testing will be an important building block. For this reason, automotive engineering company Berner & Mattner announced its participation in the international research project FITTEST - Future Internet Testing.

The challenge of the project, in particular, lies in the verification of distributed functions. Their complexity arises from the combination of very diverse services available in the web and the possibility to change these peripherally at any time. The correct and estimated functioning of these systems is to be verified permanently through the right strategy for continuous tests. The evaluation of the FITTEST results runs in case studies carried out by partners involved in the development project. The project, launched a year ago, has already delivered first findings: The solution for testing web applications mainly lies in the development of improved test methods.

"The automotive industry is not only interested in new car-to-x services, but also in the future integration of independently developed apps into vehicles," says Dr. Joachim Wegener, Head of the Automotive Department at Berner & Mattner. "In the FITTEST project, we are analyzing the combination of systematic and search-based approaches for test case generation. For the function-oriented test, we use the classification tree method by applying, for instance, CTE XL Professional. As part of the project, we also examine the application of CTE XL Professional for search-based extensions for test case generation sequences."

FITTEST is funded in part by the EUs 7th Framework Programme. Berner & Mattner contributes its experience in systematic and search-based test methods to the research project, coordinated by Dr. Tanja Vos from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Other participants include the University College London, Universiteit Utrecht, the Italian research institute Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the French developer SOFTEAM, IBM Israel - Science and Technology Ltd. and the Finnish social entertainment specialist Sulake.

The project is scheduled to run until August 31, 2013.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

EU research project looks into testing of distributed functions over the Internet