For more safety and security

ETAS is currently developing an open-source-based test automation framework for automotive systems together with renowned partners such as VW/CARIAD, Mercedes Benz Tech Innovation, and AVL.
The project is being realized under the name “Eclipse openDuT” (Device under Test) and under the umbrella of the Eclipse Software-defined Vehicle Working Group. The aim is to create a solution that enables automated, flexible automotive testing without great expenditure of time and money.

Today, the tool landscape in the automotive testing sector is quite fragmented and predominantly offers proprietary solutions that are incompatible with one another. Users such as automotive manufacturers and suppliers quickly become dependent on individual providers (vendor lock-in effect). At the same time, many commercial testing tools already consist largely of open-source components – a hybrid situation that causes dissatisfaction among users. Or, as the project manager of a large automotive manufacturer and ETAS customer recently put it, “Due to the already high proportion of open-source code in today’s proprietary testing tools, we as users are no longer willing to pay for the redevelopment of entire test benches in order to subsequently receive an isolated proprietary solution.”

Thomas Irmscher, Product Manager Security Testing Services at ETAS, understands this well. As co-initiator, he would therefore like to remedy the situation with the Eclipse openDuT project: “We see a real need for action here and a great opportunity to create, with the help of the open-source community and with partners and future users, a versatile test automation framework that maps the non-differentiable part of such an application.”

Efficient testing for software-defined vehicles

In future, this framework will provide the basic and necessary infrastructure for testing automotive systems and will, with its modular structure, support as many test applications as possible: security testing as well as safety and functional tests for individual automotive components as well as for systems in a network or for homologation purposes (e.g., for type approval in accordance with UN-R155). Within the test automation framework, users can continue to resort to proprietary test applications available on the market and define and integrate the individual test methods according to their individual requirements – for example, as black or grey box tests or across geographically dispersed test benches. With the help of Eclipse openDuT, it should be possible in future for ETAS to generate and monetize tangible added value for (OEM, TierX) users of the test framework through complementary, competitively differentiated products as well as through consulting and engineering services.

The project was first presented by stakeholders at the EclipseCon conference in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on October 16, 2023. Following official acceptance by the Eclipse Foundation, the implementation of the open-source-based test automation framework is now progressing apace, with ETAS and other partners already providing code (GitHub repository). “In view of the cybersecurity and functional safety requirements of future software-defined vehicles, automotive testing has to become faster, more efficient, and easier to integrate into existing landscapes,” says Irmscher. “With this initiative, we want to create the prerequisites for this.”