What are the approaches and challenges we encounter when applying continuous integration techniques to embedded software, where the behaviour is dictated by how the hardware, it’s (3rd party) firmware and its peripherals behave.

1. CI FOR EMBEDDED
SOFTWARE
LUCAS JENSS
FOLKER BERNITT

5. DAY ONEWhat do you mean „three months“?

6. ARM
Cortex M4
CPU
CAN
Cellular
Wifi
Bluetooth LE

8. ARM
Cortex M4
CPU
STM32F429 Discovery Kit

9. DAY TWOWhat can we do right now?!

12. Platform abstraction
Vendor
supplied
Cortex M4
Posix
FreeRTOS
Linux
x86
Our software
Code written by us
Operating system
Drivers
CPU / Hardware architecture

14. UNIX
BUILD PIPELINE
Lint Compile Test
Software
Binary

15. SO FAR WE HAVE
● Basic toolchain
● Continuous Integration up and running
● Implement features!

16. EXTRAS
● Detect memory leaks
● Use a recent compiler (Clang, llvm, gcc)
● Clang sanitizers, e.g AddressSanitizer

17. UNIX
BUILD PIPELINE
Lint Compile Test
Software
Binary
Cross
Compile

18. DAY πDockerize all the things!

19. UNIX
BUILD PIPELINE
Lint Compile Test
Software
Binary
build
container

20. INTEGRATION TESTS
Software
Binary
Cloud
Service 1
Cloud
Service 2
Cloud
Service 3

21. DAY 42STM32F429 Discovery kits arrived!

22. Platform abstraction
Vendor
supplied
Cortex M4
Posix
FreeRTOS
Linux
x86
Our software
Code written by us
Operating system
Drivers
CPU / Hardware architecture

23. UNITY

24. STARDATE 1207.3Long after the arrival of the first prototype

25. PeakCAN
J-Link
Relay
control
UART
Radio module
Mini PC
(Linux)

26. CI software
FreeRTOS tests
on Linux
FreeRTOS tests
on Linux
Tests on PCB
Tests in the Cloud™
Test setup
(Hardware model 1)
Test setup
(Hardware model 2)

27. TESTSFour examples from our pipelines

30. YES WE CAN
OPEN

33. Type Addr Command Payload
-------------------------------------------
600 3D 40 00 20 01 00 00 00 00
580 3D 60 00 20 01 00 00 00 00
600 3D 80 00 20 01 01 00 04 05
580 3D 60 00 20 01 00 00 00 00
Hello 0x3D, could you please transmit entry 0x2000 Index 0x01?
Sure mate, I‘m 0x3D *wink wink*! Here‘s the data you requested!
Oh no, you‘ve sent a malformed message 0x3D. ABORT ABORT!
Sure mate, I‘m 0x3D *wink wink*! Here‘s the data you requested!

34. LONG ! TEST

36. Flashnew
softwareandstart
At48hours:
Goto0
Verify
Time

37. END TO END
END TO END
TO TO

38. 1. Please send update
2. There’s an update3. Retrieve the update
4. Install update
5. Is update installed?

39. Linux build
ARM build
Core tests
PCB-specifc
tests
Integration
tests
Software
update tests
Long-running
tests
End-to-end
tests
Randomized
tests
Running on PCB
Running in the Cloud

41. THANK YOU
For questions, suggestions and feedback:
Lucas Jenss – ljenss@thoughtworks.com
Folker Bernitt – fbernitt@thoughtworks.com