Interface conformance testing for future military land platforms

Nowadays, military land vehicles are equipped with various sensors and effectors. These subsystems are often either not connected or are only connected via manufacturer-specific interfaces. This situation complicates efficient changes and extensions of vehicle equipment since modifications are only possible with the help of the original manufacturer. In order to unify subsystem interfaces and to increase interoperability, various open architecture initiatives have been started by national and multinational organisations. Open architectures offer many advantages such as simplified integration. However, it also requires new approaches to verify that an implementation complies with the architecture specification. This issue has already been identified by some initiatives such as the NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture (NGVA) but considerations are at the conceptual level at the moment. No tools for interface verification are implemented though. This paper describes the realisation of a conformance test system for the data exchange of NGVA-based vehicle sub-systems. The test system allows verifying NGVA Data Model compliance of sub-systems with respect to their interfaces and behaviour by means of stimulation with valid and inopportune messages. For this purpose, the test system architecture and test categories are derived from the NGVA specification. Furthermore, test cases for an example NGVA system are discussed.