Kingsum Chow, Intel Software and Services Group
Software testing on a computer system starts with a known initial state. Testing is conducted to assure the functional quality of the software in the environment that is controlled by the computer. Software written for a robot faces additional challenges. The software on the robot needs to function in a physical environment where the initial state may not be precisely known and the behavior is not precisely controllable. On top of these problems, the software on the robot faces a complex environment that may have many factors that are changing as the robot is tested.
This paper explores the challenges of testing software on a robot in the physical world. Through the case study of running a LEGO robot with motors and sensors on a FIRST LEGO League competition table, it characterizes the environment factors, some of which are not controllable. Through the sensors that are available on a robot, it characterizes the uncertainties from the sensor readings and the location of the robot. It then describes how it employs a software testing process to test if the robot can perform missions reliably given the less than perfect environment and sensors.
The software testing approach in the physical world has only scratched the surface of the complexity of the quality assurance of a robot. Early results from the case study here demonstrates that taking lots of sensor readings, establishing a relationship between the sensor data and the results of the experiments would simulate testing on the equivalence of many different environments and reduce the number of runs to catch failures.
The contributions of this paper are:
- Characterization of environment factors in a complex system such as the physical world.
- Establishing a method to develop the relationship with imprecise sensor readings and the functionality of the software on the robot.
- Applying the relationship to improve the software testing process to assure the quality and reliability of the robot.
2010 Technical Paper, Kingsum Chow, Abstract, Slides
