Interoperability of Networked Components Requires Conformance Test of Communication Interfaces

Actually automotive industries is in a dilemma: Further customer satisfaction requires further features to be built into cars and this requires more electronics in cars. All this currently happens at a rapidly increasing pace and thus increasing networked cars electronic control systems complexity correspondingly. Networking obviously requires interoperable communication modules consisting of communication hardware and software. And here is the problem: As network protocols are specified mostly in natural languages such as English, no precise and non-ambiguous specification exists. As such implementers may understand the same specification differently. And as a result realizations of the same protocol may behave differently under certain operational conditions. As a consequence mixed suppliers control modules may not be able to communicate properly.

Conformance testing is the solution to this problem. The following paper explains the general procedure how to derive conformance tests under the constraints of verbal non precise device specification. All this is explained with the example of deriving and implementing tests for CAN protocol transceivers. Finally a more general c&s group developed procedure is outlined to derive tests and how to implement them on the basis of a standard ISO tester architecture. Last but not least a road map is given on the conformance tests implemented for various vehicle communication protocols by c&s group.