Hardware/Software-Integration Testing of Cabin Controllers

Since the foundation of Verified Systems, we have performed automated HSI testing projects for Airbus cabin controllers for various civil aircraft families, from A318, A320, A330, A340, A350 to A380, including the associated Freighter versions A330F, A350F and A380F. These cabin controllers are safety-critical hard-real time systems up to critically level DAL-B, which deal with a significant number of input and output signals (up to about 100.000).

Using Verified Systems RT-Tester tool family, multiple made-to-measure test rigs have been constructed over the past years in close communication with the customer in order to be able to simulate the behaviour of all external components and to check the behaviour of the system under test (SUT) using all its hardware interfaces, like AFDX, Ethernet, CAN, ARINC-429, Discretes, Analog, Audio, also including customer-specific I/O types which are not easily commercially available.

The corresponding test artefacts and results have been used as core part to gain DO-178B/C verification credit for the certification authorities. Test-on-Target setups have been applied in order to perform detailed tests of mid-layer software modules on the real hardware and under real execution conditions. Additionally, the reached code coverage has been measured and documented using the Code Coverage Branch Monitor (CCBM) tool which is also part of the RT-Tester family.

Due to the large number of input and output signals, there is a significant potential that some of these may be interchanged or mapped incorrectly in the system under test. We have set up so-called “Configured Module Tests” in order to check each isolated signal on the main I/O interfaces for its correct mapping and routing within the lower software layers of the SUT.

Furthermore, Software-Integration (SWI) test beds and test campaigns have been set up and executed to perform testing campaigns already at an early development stage and to provide a multitude of “test benches” in parallel since a standard PC already suffices for SWI to execute meaningful tests.