Verification, validation and testing

Software is a protagonist in a wide range of domains and sectors, and plays a crucial role in transportation, industry, biomedical, automation, and innovation in many aspects of modern life. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to produce quality, reliable and safe software.
In this context, NIER offers its software verification, validation and testing services to help its customers detect “bugs”, errors and critical issues already in the design phase, before the final deployment of the system, thus maximizing its quality. , efficiency and safety.
Over the years, NIER has developed strong V&V and Testing skills in the railway domain, a highly regulated sector, in which safety and efficiency are, obviously, of primary importance. The experience thus acquired, in methodologies and processes, has been successfully extended, up to now, to the biomedical domain, allowing the areas of expertise to be expanded.
Attention to the customer is a focal point in the services offered, which are customized according to needs.

Offered services

V&V and Testing activities are key tools in the “V-Cycles” which, in accordance with the applicable regulations (EN50128, ISO26262, IEC 62304) define the software development process: in the descending phase, to the left of the “V” identify the safety requirements and their coherent explanation in the design documents; at the top of the “V” the source code is inspected (critical code review) to verify the correct implementation of the security requirements and compliance with the Coding Rules is verified; on the right side of the “V” software component, software integration and software/hardware integration tests are carried out, finally leading to software validation.

The functional tests performed in the laboratory complete the validation activities, testing the software on the “target” hardware platform in order to detect and resolve any integration problems.
In all testing phases, the team designs the scenarios and expected results based on the requirements specifications, defines the procedures, performs the set-up and configuration of the test environment (in the laboratory or on the host), then analyzing the causes of any anomalies or deviations.

The main services offered are:

  • Verification of design documents with preparation of Verification and Validation Reports
  • Critical code Review on safety critical systems
  • Verification of good programming rules or MISRA C/C++
  • Software testing on hosts at different levels of integration with certified tools (white and black box)
  • Software testing on targets in the laboratory at different levels
  • Design support for debugging, with analysis of raised anomalies
  • Complete validation of tools for the configuration of safety-critical systems (T3 [EN50128], TCL3 [ISO26262] and appropriate class for [IEC62304])
  • Design and development of simulators and test benches
  • Writing scripts for test automation

Tools
In carrying out V&V and Testing activities, some tools are used that represent the state of the art and which are integrated from time to time depending on the customer’s needs.

The most used are:

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• IBM Rational Test Real Time
• VectorCAST
• Lauterbach TRACE32
• Microsoft SQL Server R2 with Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• Understand
• PCLint
• Matlab

Reference standard
EN50126, EN50128, MISRA C/C++, ISO 26262, IEC 62304, EN50159

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