It’s axiomatic that the sooner a design error is discovered the cheaper it is to fix it, so it makes sense to verify, validate and test early and often.

Jon Friedman, automotive industry marketing manager at The MathWorks, says that many errors originate somewhere between requirements and specifications in the design process, so it follows that verification tools should link requirements documents to specifications and verify that the specification meets the requirements. That’s one of the fundamental principles that underlie The MathWorks new Simulink Design Verifier. Another is the importance of formal – mathematically provable – verification to complement simulation and functional verification in assuring that the requirements on which a model is based are met.

Based on a formal methods engine – Prover Technology’s Prover Plug-in – the Simulink Design Verifier automates test generation and property proving for Simulink and Stateflow models. It generates test cases and counterexamples automatically and performs proofs by using automated mathematical reasoning to explore model execution paths.

Friedman says the Simulink Design Verifier removes the monotony and the heavy lifting from the process of creating test cases to cover all possible usage scenarios and workflows, after which production code can be generated from the verified model using Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder.

For applications like human machine interface and body electronics, the problem facing test engineers is the sheer number of potential inputs and values. There may be a smaller number of variables in safety and powertrain applications, but the margin for error is also less.

What’s been your experience with testing and verification?