Testing in mobile cyber-physical systems

Abstract

This master thesis presents a method of testing the mobile cyber-physical systems (CPS) during normal operation. CPSs are considered as complex heterogeneous systems combining information technology and physical elements such as sensors, actuators etc. Being deployed in physical environments, safety and security are major challenges for CPSs. Improper usage of Mobile CPSs can cause either self-damage or to people and property around. This implies a pre-requisite for the mobile CPS to be more reliable, predictable and secure than their non-mobile counterparts. Frequent testing or continuous monitoring of mobile CPS can reduce the risk of improper functioning or failure of the complete system. This can be ensured by introducing a run-time testing mechanism to the system. Run-time testing needs to be scheduled such that no interference with normal system operation occurs. The test system proposed here, provides the facility to locally deploy the given test case on mobile CPS with redundant hardware, alternatively on a remote test server taking all of the network related problems into consideration. Care has been taken such that the proposed system should not interfere with normal system operation. We proposed this run-time testing system on the basis of constraint-based approach and Built In Self Test (BIST). We define exemplary ‘Test Points’ in mobile CPS i.e. an ideal test case deployment strategy and a non-influential execution of the same.