Consistency Checking of Feature Mapping Between Requirements and Test Artefacts

Within the automotive industry, the client’s high demand for individually customized products is one of the main reasons for the growing number of software-based innovations implemented in embedded systems. A universal variability management across the different development phases, such as specification, testing and implementation phase, supports the reuse of the common set of assets and the coping with the resulting complexity of such systems. However, to prevent a propagation of potential incongruities into the subsequent development phases it is essential to ensure a consistent traceability of the variability information, namely features, between the specific development artefacts. Because of the high number of artefacts within the specifications and their complex n-to-m relationship, a systematic consistency checking is a challenging task and a methodical as well as automated solution is required. In this paper, we propose such an approach in order to identify different categories of inconsistencies of feature mapping between requirements and test artefacts across the according development phases. We sketch the tool environment and describe the concept within an industrial use-case: an embedded system of Daimler AG passenger car development.