Efficient stimulus generation for testing embedded distributed systems the FlexRay example

Embedded electronic communication systems play a vital role in the future development of automotive systems. For successful application developments new test and diagnosis solutions for these distributed systems are required. This paper presents solutions for the stimulus generation of test systems based on a remote test under the stringent constraints of the automotive industry. We elaborate a flexible and accurate method that enables a systematic and comprehensive test of data link layer related communication services. Furthermore, we discuss how this solution can be applied for various different test purposes (e.g. for verification, robustness, interoperability or maintenance tests) and demonstrate its application by use of an example that varies one fundamental protocol parameter of FlexRay