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Introduction

Codethink has been developing a number of tools and processes in order to automate as much of the testing pipeline for embedded systems as possible. This includes everything from virtual hardware using QEMU, to testing on the hardware itself.

We've used a number of different technologies on our journey including:

  • Gitlab CI to run tests on daily builds or upon new merges.
  • OpenQA to run UI and graphics tests.
  • QAD to simulate keyboard, touch and gesture interactions.
  • CAN interfaces to simulate a vehicle on the road.
  • USB switches to control multiple peripherals to the hardware under test.

Typically this has taken considerable time to set up, wading through the red tape of client's IT departments to gain access to client infrastructure, understand their build, CI and Test setup and integrating the tools required to provide useful data from testing.

This is where Testing In A Box (TIAB) comes in. We've put everything into one box with minimal set up. So that setting up these testing frameworks is less painful and more time efficient.

TIAB hardware image

Technologies used

Ansible

Ansible scripts are used to provision the host to run tests on OpenQA and run Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment(CI/CD) tasks on GitLab.

  • OpenQA
    • OpenSUSE's automated testing tool.
  • QAD
    • Quality Assurance Daemon.
  • ser2net
    • Serial to Network proxy. A program for allowing connections between gensio accepters and gensio connector.
  • GitLab
    • GitLab runner for Continuous Integration and Deployment.
    • There is also a script to setup a self-hosted GitLab instance if required.

Hardware

This is to house all the hardware needed into one box. This includes:

  • USB hub
  • USB switch
    • A bidirectional USB-C switcher. It can be pragmatically controlled to switch connection between USB devices and hosts.
  • USB HID emulation
    • Emulating HID input from host to device to test against.
  • CAN interface
    • Communication with CAN devices.

Open Source Projects

Here are the following Open Source repositories for TIAB:

  • Ansible scripts
    • All the Ansible scripts needed to provision a TIAB host hardware.
  • Hardware
    • CAD models and Schematics of TIAB case and I/O PCB board.
  • ESP32-C3 firmware
    • The firmware to be flashed onto the ESP32-C3 chip on the I/O board.
  • TIAB Tools
    • Tools to assist in flashing and configuring the TIAB I/O board.