Eliminating Automotive Infotainment System Testing Challenges

The degree of innovation to which automotive and automotive equipment testing processes have to comply to is dictate by the constant demand of new features and content, advancement in operability, and overall progressive evolution. Accumulating complexity over time, the level of challenges met in the testing of automotive infotainment system has risen and, with it, testing automation solution such as MATT, the device testing robot, have evolved to adapt to everchanging requirements.

Changes, Challenges and Performance

The day-to-day users of an automotive infotainment system are not shy in demanding products that are more intuitive, powerful, and of a higher quality than ever before, looking for flowless usability of their in- car devices. Expectations of new features and preference adjustments are becoming mandatory for systems that want to offer the best experience through their use. Such an example is the need for in-vehicle-infotainment systems to accommodate smooth connectivity and easy integration with portable devices’ features and requirements, as they are now a staple element in the daily life of every person. But all the hard work in keeping car drivers happy in the face of constant development comes with its own challenges.

The evolutionary surge, together with the drive for progress, brought by the new and innovative, causes in direct proportion an inflation in the complexity of automotive infotainment systems, making it more likely for product flaws and shortcomings to appear. As there are increasing expectations for fast delivered new products and models, adaptations need to be made to the product development cycle to shorten its time span. Therefore, it is only natural for in-vehicle-infotainment device testing solutions to go through their own trends and changes as they evolve to accommodate progressive test cases and device quality assessment necessities. With the rising complexity of evaluation and verification demands, as well as the expanding variety and range of use cases, on one hand manual testing grew to be impractical, on the other the well-known software testing tools are on their way to becoming obsolete for new infotainment systems test cases.

Overcoming Shortcomings in Testing In-vehicle-infotainment System 

To overcome industry challenges, comply to trends and increase the effectiveness of automotive infotainment systems testing processes, testers need to orientate themselves towards automated testing solutions that both shorten time spent in the product development cycle and that can accommodate in-vehicle-infotainment systems of varied and adapting complexities. Covering functional, usability and operational testing along the product development cycle, robot endorsed testing automation brings to the table an ‘all in one’ solution to solving industry’s device testing challenges. For both hardware and software evaluation, testing robots such as MATT, are interacting with devices through physical input and are customized to accommodate each test case and device requirements.

MATT: Created to adapt to industry and market changes

Testing independently of features and applications present on the infotainment systems, MATT proves that operating continuously reduces evaluation time, increases error detection and promotes the delivery of high- quality products suitable for end customers’ standards. Made to replicate human use on devices, a testing robot is resilient to external factors, being unaffected by modifications brought to test conditions. Complying to today’s real-life use of infotainment systems, connectivity and integration with external devices is achieved seamlessly.

Behinds MATT’s adaptability

Using visual elements to create testcases

Designed to replicate utilizer’s daily interaction on devices, MATT software effectively identifies on screen features, executing multitouch gestures (tap, pinch, swipe, zoom-in, zoom-out) and pressing buttons regardless of their positioning on the in-vehicle-infotainment systems. All executed testcases are created using visual elements, therefore, test flows can be implemented independent of the hardware or software of the tested system. Addressing the necessity of an automotive infotainment testing solution that is resilient to product design and feature changes, MATT can perform the exact test flow on different devices, with no updates needed to be made, using the already recognized visual ques.

Flexibility to environmental changes

Underlining the importance of testing in-vehicle-infotainment systems under everyday use conditions, the device testing robot’s computer vision API effectively reduces impact of noise caused by environmental factors (e.g. light variation), and of modifications that may appear within the tested system (e.g. size, position, shape of an icon that may change from an OS to another). If the situation requires-take for example the dismissal of a pop-up alert- custom AI elements can be added to the test flow.

A dependable tool for the entire array of in-vehicle-infotainment systems testing requirements and complexities

MATT proves efficiency from the most common testing scenarios and going as far as stability and regression testing – in the context of recently released features in the expanding world of OTA (over-the-air) updates- and effortlessly and accurately performing latency measurements. Those types of assessments are indispensable to automotive industry, as the up to standards operation of in-vehicle- devices relies on their accuracy. MATT uses its software ecosystem to define and measure latency on automotive infotainment system touchscreens. This can be done at any point during the product development cycle, from R&D phase (validation), to end of line evaluation, offering a complete overview of both hardware and software elements of the in-vehicle-infotainment system. Here is an example of touch screen response time measurement:

When monitoring the response time of the screen after a certain performed actions (e.g. tapping on an icon), MATT uses a high speed camera, that is triggered at the moment of touch interaction with the screen, to measure the response time latency of an infotainment system’s app or feature. The recorded footage is then analyzed- automatically using computer vision or manually- to determine the screen response time.

Conclusion

As challenges are constantly brought to automotive infotainment systems testing processes by progressive technological advancement and increasing customer demands and expectations, the solutions for evaluating in- vehicle- infotainment systems have evolved bringing ease to those industry shortcomings. Through replicating everyday use on in-vehicle-infotainment devices and continuous testing, a robot automated testing process not only shortens the product development timeline and decreases error occurrence, but also increases and supports test cases’ quality standards, implicitly customer satisfaction, while adapting to changing features, requirements and conditions of the devices, testing scenarios or industry altogether. MATT overtakes challenges met in the process of testing in-vehicle-infotainment systems using its characteristic adaptability and capabilities to support an effective operation throughout the testing process. Complementing the progressive evolution and complexity of automotive infotainment systems, MATT delivers precision and reliability for the purpose of end user’s satisfaction.