Abstract
TTCN-3 has gained increasing significance in recent years. It was originally developed to fit the needs of testing software-based applications and systems in the telecommunication industry and has shown its applicability to a wide range of other industrial domains in the mean time. TTCN-3 provides platform-independent, universal and powerful concepts to describe tests, especially for discrete, interactive systems. However, TTCN-3 addresses systems with discrete input and output characteristics only. The lack of powerful means that reasonably allow specifying and evaluating continuous data flow makes TTCN-3 sufficient neither for the automotive industry nor for other industries that deal with highly complex software-based control systems. This paper introduces the notion of streams, stream ports and stream templates to TTCN-3. It revises the initial design of continuous TTCN-3, a TTCN-3 extension for testing continuous or hybrid systems [20,21] and demonstrates the applicability for a case study that is typical for testing embedded control systems in the automotive industry.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alur, R., Henzinger T.A., Sontag E.D.: Hybrid systems III: verification and control. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. In: Proceedings of the DIMACS/SYCON Workshop, October 22-25, 1995, Ruttgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Bd. 1066. Springer, Berlin (1996). ISBN 3-540-61155-X
Bringmann E., Kraemer A.: Systematic testing of the continuous behavior of automotive systems. In: SEAS ’06: Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Software Engineering for Automotive Systems. pp. 13–20. ACM Press, New York (2006). ISBN 1-59593-402-2
Conrad M.: Modell-basierter Test Eingebetteter Software im Automobil, TU-Berlin, Discussion (2004)
Dai, Z., Grabowski, J., Neukirchen, H.: Timed TTCN-3—A real-time extension for TTCN. In: Testing of Communicating Systems, vol. 14, Kluwer, Berlin (March 2002)
dSpace AG: dSPACE—AutomationDesk. http://www.dspace.com/ww/en/pub/home/products/sw/expsoft/automdesk.cfm. Version 2007
Etas Group: ETAS—Hardware in the loop (HiL)—ECU Testing—Applications & Solutions—ETAS Products. http://www.etas.com/en/products/applications_hardware_in_the_loop.php. Version 2007
ETSI: ES 201 873-1 V3.2.1: Methods for Testing and Specification (MTS). The Testing and Test Control Notation Version 3, Part 1: TTCN-3 Core Language. Sophia Antipolis, France, (February 2007)
ETSI: ES 201 873-4 V3.2.1: Methods for Testing and Specification (MTS). The Testing and Test Control Notation Version 3, Part 4: TTCN-3 Operational Semantics. Sophia Antipolis, France, (February 2007)
ETSI: ES 201 873-5 V3.2.1: Methods for Testing and Specification (MTS). The Testing and Test Control Notation Version 3, Part 5: TTCN-3 Runtime Interfaces. Sophia Antipolis, France, (February 2007)
Grossmann, J.; Conrad M., Fey I., Wewetzer C., Lamberg, K., Krupp A.: TestML a language for exchange of Tests. http://www.immos-project.de/. Version 2006
Grossmann, J. ; Mueller, W.: A formal behavioral semantics for TestML. In: Proceedings of IEEE ISoLA 06, Paphos Cyprus, pp. 453–460 (2006)
International Organization for Standardization: Information technology—Open systems interconnection—Conformance testing methodology and framework—Part 3: The Tree and Tabular combined Notation (TTCN), ISO/IEC 9646-3, 2nd edn. Geneva, November 1998
Schäuffele, J.T.Z.: Automotive Software Engineering. Vieweg & Sohn, Wiesbaden (2006) ISBN 978–3528010409
Lehmann, E.: Time Partition Testing Systematischer Test des Kontinuierlichen Verhaltens Von Eingebetteten Systemen. Berlin, TU-Berlin, Disscussion (2004)
Lynch, N.A., Segala R., Vaandrager F.W., Weinberg, H.B.: Hybrid I/O Automata. In: Alur, R., Henzinger T.A., Sontag E.D. pp. 496–510. ISBN 3-540-61155-X
MBtech Group: http://www.mbtech-group.com—PROVEtech:TA—Überblick. http://www.mbtech-group.com/eu-de/electronics_solutions/test_engineering/provetechta_ueberblick.html. Version 2007
National Instruments: NI TestStand—Products and Services—National Instruments. http://www.ni.com/teststand/. Version 2007
Neukirchen, H.: Languages, Tools and Patterns for the Specification of Distributed Real-Time Tests, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Discussion (2004)
SCC20 ATML Group: IEEE ATML Specification Drafts and IEEE ATML Status Reports. http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc20/tii/. Version 2006
Schieferdecker, I., Bringmann, E., Grossmann, J.: Continuous TTCN-3: testing of embedded control systems. In: SEAS ’06: Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Software Engineering for Automotive Systems. ACM Press, New York pp. 29–36 (2006). ISBN 1-59593-402-2
Schieferdecker, I., Grossmann, J.: Testing of Embedded Control Systems with Continous Signals. In: Dagstuhl-Workshop MBEES: Modellbasierte Entwicklung eingebetteter Systeme II, TU Braunschweig, pp. 113–122 (2006)
The MathWorks: The MathWorks Helpdesk—Stateflow Semantics. http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/toolbox/stateflow/ug/f26-1032049.html. Version 2007
The MathWorks: Web Pages of Stateflow - Design and Simulate State Machines and Control Logic. http://www.mathworks.com/products/stateflow/. Version 2007
Vector Informatik GmbH: Vector [Portfolio-Übersicht “Steuergeräte-Test”]. http://www.vector-worldwide.com/vi_ecutest_de.html. Version 2007
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schieferdecker, I., Grossmann, J. Testing hybrid control systems with TTCN-3: an overview on continuous TTCN-3. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transf 10, 383–400 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-008-0081-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-008-0081-2