Quality Assurance – The Bug Busters
Error detection and quality assurance in the Daimler Research software lab
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Whenever there’s a fire, just call the fire department. They’re generally quick, and they’re glad when they’ve put out the blaze. But of course they’d prefer to be called in even earlier, namely to help prevent fires from breaking out in the first place. Stefan Schmerler and Bernhard Hohlfeld often feel the same way. By the time they’re consulted, it’s generally all hands to the pumps.
The two software specialists and their teams from Daimler Research often go into action when unexpected problems crop up with the program for one of the onboard electronic control systems during the development of a new vehicle. Depending on the model and the level of equipment, today’s cars may have between 40 and 60 control units, each with its own specific source code.
As a result, the experts from Klaus Grimm’s software laboratory are rarely short of a new challenge. Schmerler is head of the Methods and Tools department in Böblingen, Germany, and his colleague Hohlfeld occupies a similar position in Software Structures at the Daimler Research Center in Ulm.
The problems that the two software specialists and their colleagues are called upon to resolve can involve anything from a “harmless” malfunction in the control unit of a telematics system — for example, the display runs extremely slowly in navigation mode or disappears completely when the car phone is used — to serious bugs that might, in certain circumstances, interfere with engine control or transmission management systems.
Reams of specifications
If the performance specifications of every control unit in a car were to be printed out, the resulting paper jam would fill 500 folders. And given the fact that almost all of the control units communicate with one another in some way, it’s little wonder that glitches creep in during the development phase for a new vehicle. “In today’s cars,” Schmerler explains, “most of the control units are developed and produced — along with the software — by specialist companies according to the carmaker’s own specifications. But in sensitive areas where competition is an issue, such as the software for a truck powertrain, Daimler develops its own source codes.”
