ACT: Automated CPS Testing for Open-Source Robotic Platforms

2026-04-13

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of effective automated testing mechanisms in the collaborative development of open-source cyber-physical systems (CPS) software on robotic platforms, which often leads to critical bugs going undetected. To bridge this gap, the paper introduces ACT—a novel framework that brings automated continuous testing into the collaborative development of open-source CPS and robotics for the first time, thereby filling a key void in the community’s testing toolchain. ACT integrates a GitHub-driven automated testing pipeline, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and multi-module co-validation techniques. A case study on an educational robotics platform demonstrates that the framework significantly enhances test coverage and reliability of open-source CPS software.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Multiagent Systems: Coordination and Collaboration
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

Open-source software for cyber-physical systems (CPS) often lacks robust testing involving robotic platforms, resulting in critical errors that remain undetected. This is especially challenging when multiple modules of CPS software are developed by various open-source contributors. To address this gap, we propose Automated CPS Testing (ACT) that performs automated, continuous testing of open-source software with its robotic platforms, integrated with the open-source infrastructure such as GitHub. We implement an ACT prototype and conduct a case study on an open-source CPS with an educational robotic platform to demonstrate its capabilities.

Problem

• cyber-physical systems
• open-source software
• robotic platforms
• software testing
• continuous integration

Innovation

• Automated CPS Testing
• robotic platforms
• continuous integration
• open-source software
• hardware-in-the-loop testing