Using Sessions, Episodes and Parameterized Testing in ROSPIT for Constructing Re-Usable Test Specifications

In this paper we discuss the recently added parameterized testing functionalities in the ROSPIT Framework for Physical Integration Testing of robot applications. Physical Integration Testing is a paradigm for end-to-end (hardware-in-the-loop) testing of robot applications. Parameterized testing allows for a test suite to be dynamically reconfigured before execution. A parameterized execution of a test suite can be defined in an episode, and multiple episodes can be gathered in a session. By parameterizing test specifications it becomes easier to reuse and share them. The core test specification format is described using XML Schema, forming a kind of DSL for creating reproducible tests and experiments. By making it easier to create realistic test environments we hope to accelerate robot software engineering and increase the quality of robot software, leading to a greater social contribution of robotics.