ATTEST: Automated and Thorough Testing of Embedded Software in Teaching

Abstract

Dependability requirements are getting increasingly stringent in embedded systems, demanding highly skilled developers. One crucial point in building up expertise is getting precise feedback in programming courses at university to recognize flaws and learn from mistakes. Depending on the assignment and learning outcome, the assessment may include testing for the implementation's completeness, correctness, performance, and robustness. A timely and in-depth review for a large number of course participants relies on test automation. However, embedded software often includes hardware-dependent code that can only be executed on the target device. Thus, we provide an open-source and remote hardware-in-the-loop testing solution with pre-defined test cases for embedded software particularly designed for teaching in university courses. This paper defines and elaborates on the requirements, gives an insight into design decisions, and evaluates the test system on metrics of our Real-Time Operating Systems course.