A Novel Approach to Perform an Automated Validation of Radar Emulation Platform Using Qualification Framework

Automation has long been a widely used term in the technological society and it is currently one of the most in-demand skills. Micro-controllers, on the other hand, are an interesting emerging technology, particularly in the automotive industry where they can be highly valuable. When used in safety-critical applications, automotive microcontrollers undergo a lengthy development cycle of around 3–5 years before they are produced. However, with the increasing demand for applications such as ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System), this long gap between product development and production is not ideal for manufacturers. Therefore, any level of automation during any stage of the development cycle is highly desirable. A Radar Emulation Platform is an innovative solution that involves programming the ADAS functional blocks of a Micro-Controller into an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and using it in real applications. This enables the end customer to utilize these functional blocks before the production of the actual Micro-Controller, which can save more than a year or two in development time. However, before delivering such a platform to the end-user, it must undergo thorough validation to ensure its functionality, which itself can be a time-consuming task. This paper describes a unique and highly automated validation method for such a platform that enables manufacturers to save time for delivery. The method involves automated execution of hundreds of tests to validate the functional blocks, automated data integrity checks for every test, and control of external hardware for driving data. This framework is crucial because the emulation platform is developed in parallel with the microcontroller design and will have many design releases from time-to-time. Therefore, each release must be validated, and the use of an automated framework will significantly save time. Furthermore, this framework is not just beneficial for manufacturers but also for end-customers who can use it to see the results of their application. The level of automation of this validation method makes it an efficient and reliable way to validate the functionality of the Radar Emulation Platform.