Microcontroller tracing in Hardware in the Loop tests integrating trace port measurement capability into NI VeriStand

Developing software for safety critical embedded systems requires extensive testing, and HIL (Hardware in the Loop) test has one of the most important roles in this testing process. Modern microcontrollers can provide opportunities to improve the efficiency and capability of traditional HIL testing. Many of these opportunities are connected to their internal so called Trace interfaces. This paper shortly introduces the capabilities of these Trace interfaces, and presents the way to integrate them into a professional HIL test development environment the NI VeriStand. The integration process starts with the acquisition of Trace signals, which requires a high speed FPGA based solution, and then a way to capture and process the data at the VeriStand engine level (usually runs on a real-time target), and at the Workspace level (Host PC) is described. The paper ends with the conclusion, which analyzes the throughput and capabilities of the integrated Trace interface and shows the possible application of the data captured by it.