Hardware-in-the-Loop test automation framework for Motorsport ECU/VCU

The main goal of this project was to automate the generation of test-files necessary to validate hardware and software. The need of this development was influenced by the traditional non-automatic way to perform tests: every time a test was performed the operator had to modify manually the test sequence, resulting in both a waste of time and resources. At first, it was performed a study of the environment in order to gain confidence with all its working principles. Then it was fundamental to understand which was the most suitable approach to realize the test sequence. These two approaches were, respectively, the manipulation of the base sequence described in a .xml file and the reconstruction of the same sequence using Python. The second approach resulted to be the best, that is why it was decided to develop the application based on this choice. The second step was to understand in which way it was possible to handle the faults, studying different options: the modification of the main function, the definition of a second function specific for just the fault and the use of the parallelisation of more than one task. Once understood that the third method was the most suitable one, it was developed a metalanguage that could make possible the generation of the desired number of test-files, in relation to what described in the excel test-file. At the end, the designed metalanguage, needs three different types of file: one with the description of every test, one with all the signals that can be modified and one with all the tokens that allow to apply different types of fault during the test. In addition, to make the application more user friendly, it was developed also a Graphical User Interface that allows to interact with the code in an easier manner.