miniHIL references

KÄRCHER – global provider of cleaning technology

“miniHIL at Kärcher makes the difference!”

Dominik Wenning, Manager Embedded Software & Testing, Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG

Our Problem

As a global provider of cleaning technology, we have many different products that we need to develop quickly and with high quality.

The Solution

The miniHIL test system from PROTOS helps us to test all product variants early and comprehensively during the entire development process.

Our advantages with the miniHIL:

• Generalization of the test setup for all products (product lines / variants test)
• Lean and fast test development
• Complete test automation from the desktop to continuous integration
• Very fast test execution after every software change (within minutes)
• We can use miniHIL for all product categories
• Very small setup – fits on the developer’s desktop and for all projects in a server cabinet – many boards in a small space
• Test setup requires no safety measures (no HW compliance, no lab, no fire extinguishing equipment)
• Quick training of new colleagues thanks to good documentation
• Short-term, competent support from PROTOS

Project example: Test for hot water high-pressure cleaner (professional series)

• Complete testing of the software functionality of all product variants
• Test of the complete software, including all drivers on the correct microcontroller
• Complete environment simulation (e.g. simulation of 3-phase current measurement for shutdown)
• Test of functions that can not be stimulated in the system test
• Test of all interfaces (IOs, CAN, LIN, PWMs, …)

Hot water high-pressure cleaner (KAERCHER Professional series)

KAERCHER website

HITEX – provider of embedded software

"The miniHIL is a compact, inexpensive test system that I can use to test all my electronic developments directly and quickly"

Matthias Spranz, Head of Development, Hitex GmbH

About Hitex

Hitex develops embedded hardware and software as a service for many different industries: Automotive, Industrial Automation, Chipcard & Security, Special Purpose Vehicle, Home Appliances, Medical and Railway.

Our problem

Hitex GmbH supports very many customers simultaneously in the development of their embedded systems. The constant rebuilding of expensive, few test systems before each test is economically not reasonable. The effort is very high and the tests can only be executed very rarely.

The solution

Due to the low-cost miniHIL hardware, a separate miniHIL test can be built for each project:

• There is no need to constantly rebuild the test systems
• The test system is always available for immediate testing of any software change
• We can test many projects with one standardized system

We also support and advise our customers in using the miniHIL test system for their own projects.

Hitex Website

FLECKNER + SIMON – Automotive Engineering and Consulting

"miniHIL reduces costs and accelerates the development process"

Michael Salzer, CEO, F+S Fleckner und Simon Informationstechnik GmbH

The problem

The cost pressure on automotive suppliers is enormous. At the same time, specialized test equipment and its licenses are very expensive in the automotive sector. As a result, savings are made primarily on test equipment, tests are carried out less frequently and errors are only discovered late in the process. This leads to higher troubleshooting costs and longer development cycles.

The solution

PROTOS miniHIL offers an attractive price and license cost model, which can break this cost spiral.

The advantages of using the PROTOS miniHIL:

• Each developer has their own miniHIL test setup – possibly even in their home office
• Once the system has been set up, developers can quickly develop their own test cases and integrate them into test automation
• Instead of manual “switch tests”, feature tests are developed for reuse in miniHIL
• Developers can efficiently “smoke test” the entire software before check-in to avoid side effects of their changes.
• Same test setup at the developer workstation as for the central test automation: if a tester finds a bug, a developer can easily reproduce the bug by running the bug regression test at his workstation

The offer

F+S supports clients in setting up the miniHIL from PROTOS: from the initial analysis of your requirements to safety qualification in accordance with ISO26262. We configure the system according to the customer’s requirements, train employees for efficient project use and support product development on request. We also offer miniHIL and ‘Polarion ALM’ tool integration: Test cases are imported from miniHIL to Polarion and kept synchronized. This avoids inconsistencies and manual synchronization of test cases between the tools.

Thanks to our decades of experience in the automotive sector, we are able to map the development and management of your test specifications in compliance with Automotive SPICE® – our intacs® certified assessors will be happy to advise you.

Partner page of Fleckner+Simon

ECLIPSEINA – the expert for charging communication solutions

"eTrice at Eclipseina is the basis of our charging controller product line architecture!"

Annette Kempf – Managing Director and Product Manager Charging Solutions, Eclipseina GmbH

Our challenge

Our EC-CHARGE-EVSE charging controller is the central intelligence in the charging station (EVSE = Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment). EC-CHARGE-EVSE requires a product line approach due to the incalculably large number of possible customer variants.

Various states exist within the charging communication, in particular for the different communication standards to the electric vehicle (EV). These include state machines for the EV and the EVSE charging station. All components within the charging station, such as meters, insulation monitoring, sensors and displays, have specific requirements for communication and internal statuses. Last but not least, the EVSE must communicate with the backend via another standard, which is also already available in different versions.

The solution

Design of a product line for the charging controller from scratch, supported by modeling the state machines and the component architecture with the open source modeling tool eTrice.

Our advantages of using eTrice and architecture consulting by PROTOS:

• Formal model of components and behavior that can be easily maintained
• Architecture and software are always consistent thanks to code generation
• Disciplining the developers, as they have to model first
• Time and cost savings through code generation
• Excellent expert support in the development of a product line from scratch

Charge controller EC-Charge

Eclipseina GmbH – Website

eTrice Open Source Project