A Scalable Framework for Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Firmware Validation in Complex IOT Ecosystems

Abstract

The complexity of Internet of Things devices poses significant validation challenges with their progression from isolated functions to ecosystems of interconnected systems. The software-hardware interaction bugs often cannot be identified during traditional testing, especially in power management, communication protocols, and sensor interfaces. The described scalable Hardware-in-the-Loop framework deals with these issues by introducing a hybrid between declarative and procedural architecture that decouples the implementation of tests and their specification. Python procedural engine is a hardware abstraction engine, and YAML configuration can be used to write domain experts without understanding abstract frameworks. Such an architecture is bringing validation out of the manual and subjective process, and into an automated and deterministic process, which is part of development pipelines. The framework allows prompt feedback on changes in the code, concurrent running of tests, and extensive data gathering that will reveal hidden peculiarities. Using physical hardware testing during the development lifecycle, as opposed to the end of it, improves the product quality, provides faster development speed despite increased testing needs.