- High-integrity processors – Software tools – Protection systems – Training - Custom designs - Consultancy -

Testing high-integrity embedded systems can be very challenging.

In such designs, the system under development must often interact with other equipment (for example, the vehicle wheel in an automotive braking design) and / or with a user (for example, taking measurements from a patient in an ECG monitoring system) in a manner which can make it very difficult and / or dangerous to test and debug the system. When developing such systems, a “hardware-in-the-loop” (HIL) testbed is often a key part of the development environment.

Our RapidiTTy Tester provide a flexible means of carrying out detailed testing at a system level.

Capabilities provided by RapidiTTy Tester

When creating a real-time embedded system, the testing process is designed to ensure that requirements have been met.

These requirements may be recorded using RapidiTTy Designer or a similar toolset. If recorded using RapidiTTy Designer, each requirement may be associated with a code module (in RapidiTTy Builder and one or more test scripts in RapidiTTy Tester.

At a low level, RapidiTTy Tester allows the user to do the following:

• Monitor a large number of digital inputs (typically 50+).
• Monitor a number of analogue inputs (typically 10+).
• Control the state of a large number of digital outputs (typically 50+).
• Control the state of a large number of analogue outputs (typically 10+)
• Monitor activity on a number of CAN and other serial buses (typically up 10 CAN buses).
• Send messages on a number of CAN and other serial buses (typically up 10 CAN buses).

Crucially, all of the above activities can be carried out at precise times, under the control of user-written test scripts.

In a simple system, a script may describe the following behaviour:

• Send message with ID 0xAA on CAN bus 1
• Wait 10 ms
• Send message with ID 0xBB on CAN bus 2
• Wait 2 ms
• Press Button Bx01
• Wait 10 µs
• Press Button Bx02
• Monitor Analogue Input 3 to ensure that an input of 3V is received within 2 ms
• Monitor CAN bus 3 to ensure that a message with ID 0xCC is received within 6 ms

A simple example

During the testing of real-time embedded systems, our key task is to ensure that system requirements have been met.

To illustrate some of the challenges involved, suppose we are working with the control system for an elevator (the example is simple but the challenges are not unrealistic).

We’ll further suppose that our design for this system involves four processor units:

• Central Elevator Control Unit, responsible for scheduling elevator requests, etc.
• Elevator car unit, responsible for handling passenger requests (inside the car) and car door control.
• Drive control unit, responsible for control and monitoring of the lift (tower) motor and cable.
• Building interface unit, responsible for processing elevator call requests, etc.

These four units will be connected together in a star topology (with the CECU at the hub), using 3 dual-CAN buses. The CAN network will run a shared-clock protocol.

We will (of course) have a detailed set of requirements to meet, such as the following simple examples:

• When one of the Elevator Call Buttons is pressed, the Elevator Car will move to the corresponding floor
• The Elevator System will indicate that it has received the request from the user by illuminating the Floor Indicator LED adjacent to the Elevator Call Button which was used to initiate the request. The Floor Indicator LED must be illuminated no more than 100ms after the Elevator Call Button is pressed.
• The maximum interval between the pressing of the Elevator Call Button and the arrival of the Elevator Car at the required floor must not exceed 3 minutes when using the “Standard Loading” system use model.

RapidiTTy Tester allows us to fully test the system behaviour.

A custom product

In our experience, every organisation developing reliable embedded systems has different requirements. We therefore develop custom versions of our RapidiTTy Tester product to match the needs of a specific customer.

In most cases, RapidiTTy Test products are provided with a set of matched development processes which are (again) fully customised to meet the needs of the organisation concerned.

Price guide

We believe in being open about our product prices.

Our typical fee for developing a version of RapidiTTy Designer to match your precise requirements is approximately £25,000 + VAT. For this, you will receive 5 licences for the toolset and 5 hardware interface modules. You will also receive training in the use of the product and — if required — guidance on related development processes.

The toolset licence is permanent and the fee includes one year of product support. Ongoing product and process support can be provided at an annual fee of approximately 20% of the initial purchase price.

Additional training can be provided in various ways (public courses, on-site courses, “Distance Learning” formats).

Custom HIL testbeds

We can also provide a wide range of more specialised, custom “Hardware-in-the-Loop” testbeds. Such testbeds are typically used during product development and testing and / or as a means of performing product demonstrations to customers.

Please contact us to discuss your requirements.

Further information

Please contact us for further information.