Automation of structural software testing of autonomous vehicles to support field testing

Abstract

Intelligent autonomous vehicle (or just autonomous vehicle - AV) is a type of embedded system that integrates physical (hardware) and computational (software) components. Its main feature is the ability to move and operate partially or fully autonomously. Autonomy grows with the ability to perceive and move within the environment, robustness and ability to solve and perform tasks dealing with different situations (intelligence). Autonomous vehicles represent an important research topic that has a direct impact on society. However, as this field progresses some secondary problems arise, such as how to know if these systems have been sufficiently tested.One of the testing phases of an AV is the field testing, where the vehicle is taken to a controlled environment and it should execute the mission for which it was programed freely. It is generally used to ensure that autonomous vehicles show the intended behavior, but it usually does not take into consideration the code structure. The vehicle (hardware and software) could pass the field testing, but important parts of the code may never have been executed. During the field testing, the input data are collected in logs that can be further analyzed to evaluate the test results and to perform other types of offline tests.This work aims to investigate the structural testing of autonomous vehicles. For this, the problematic issues should be identified and should be seek solutions through defining testing strategies and creation or adaptation of structural testing criteria as well as support tools.