Authors : J. Sasi Bhanu, Y. Venkata Raghavarao and JKR Sastry
Abstract: Many distributed embedded systems are being used for implementing different kinds of applications. The trend in embedded systems design in recent years has been towards highly distributed architectures with support for concurrency, data and control flow and scalable distributed computations. Many methods have been proposed in the past for testing a standalone embedded system and not many methods have been proposed for testing distributed embedded systems. Methods such as scaffolding, assert macros, in-circuit emulators, monitors, logic analyzers are used in addition to third party tools for undertaking the testing of standalone systems. However, using of the same for testing a distributed embedded system is complicated. In the case of distributed embedded systems, a test case must be tested considering the related processes which are distributed across severa lembedded systems that are connected within the same network. Some testing has also to be carried for proper messaging/communication taking place between the embedded systems that get connected to the network. Messaging as such is dependent on the type of networking such as I2C, CAN and RS485 is used for establishing the distributed embedded system. It is not possible to undertake testing when any part of the network fails during testing. In this study, a method has been proposed for testing distributed embedded system that gets connected through RS485 based communication system through use of in-circuit-emulators that are capable of isolating the processes related to the test cases that must be tested to ensure that the distributed embedded system has been functioning as per the design.
J. Sasi Bhanu, Y. Venkata Raghavarao and JKR Sastry, 2018. Testing through In-Circuit Emulators, the RS485 based Distributed Embedded System. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 1947-1962.