Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
The control systems in big physics facilities may be updated several times a year. Ideally, prior to each release all components of the control system would be tested. One common control system component is a DAQ driver which is generally tested manually according to a predefined test plan. In order to simplify this process, we have developed the TestBed suite, a test framework that executes tests automatically. TestBed is a PXI chassis which contains an embedded controller running the control system on Scientific Linux and a DAQ board capable of generating and acquiring analog and digital signals. TestBed provides an easy-to-use framework written in Python and allows for the quick development and execution of automatic test scripts. From a hardware perspective, each system under test is physically connected to TestBed with a connector board using a predefined pin configuration. Both the system under test and TestBed are connected to the network. The resulting test framework makes it possible for the automatic tests to be executed with each new release of the control system, thus liberating human resources and ensuring complete consistency and repeatability in the testing protocol.
