Passive Testing of Vehicular Embedded Systems: An Industrial Case Study with T-EARS and Napkin Studio
2026 (English)In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science / [ed] Bonfanti S., Papadopoulos G.A., Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH , 2026, Vol. 16107 LNCS, p. 290-306Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Passive testing is an approach to verify system behavior by observing logs from normal operation, without actively injecting test stimuli. This paper presents an industrial case study of applying passive testing in the domain of vehicular embedded systems, utilizing two specialized tools: Timed Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (T-EARS) for specifying temporal requirements, and Napkin Studio for evaluating these requirements against real system execution logs. We collaborated with Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE) to translate a set of natural language requirements into structured T-EARS specifications. Then we used Napkin Studio to test these requirements against recorded machine log data passively. We evaluate the feasibility of this approach, the extent to which it can detect requirement violations or injected faults, and the perceptions of industry stakeholders regarding the adoption of such passive tests in their verification process. The results show that a majority of functional requirements can be expressed as Guarded Assertions (GAs) and validated on logs, uncovering specific issues. Stakeholders found the method promising for improving test coverage and efficiency, although integration challenges (e.g., log signal inconsistencies and tool usability issues) were noted. Overall, this work provides empirical evidence that passive testing with T-EARS and Napkin Studio can complement traditional hardware-in-the-loop testing, offering a scalable and non-intrusive verification approach in developing vehicular systems
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH , 2026. Vol. 16107 LNCS, p. 290-306
Keywords [en]
embedded systems; Napkin Studio; Passive testing; requirements engineering; T-EARS; vehicular systems
National Category
Computer Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-80385DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-05188-2_19Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105016906274OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-80385DiVA, id: diva2:2032559
Conference
7th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference on Testing Software and Systems, ICTSS 2025, Limassol, 17 September 2025 - 19 September 2025
Note
The authors thank Volvo Construction Equipment, especially the Verification & Validation team, for their support and collaboration. We are grateful to J\u00F6rgen Stenmark and Mrinal Kumar for their guidance, and to the engineers who participated in our evaluation for their valuable feedback. This work is further supported by the Software Center project, Eureka\u2019s Sustainability Call project SUS2022-039: NRPCES & the MATISSE project, an EU-funded initiative under Horizon Europe GA no.101056674.
2026-01-272026-01-272026-01-27Bibliographically approved