Automated hardware-in-the-loop tester for automotive electronic control units

A system comprising:

• a data communication module (DCM) test bench system configured to test a DCM of a vehicle, the DCM test bench system including a computing device having a processor configured to execute instructions stored in a nontransitory computer-readable medium, wherein the instructions include:
• receiving, using the processor, a selection from an operator of the DCM test bench system indicating one of a manual DCM test procedure and an automated DCM test procedure;
• in response to the received selection indicating the manual DCM test procedure:
• generating, with the processor, a graphical user interface including a plurality of graphical elements each associated with a hardware device of a plurality of hardware devices of the DCM test bench system, the plurality of hardware devices being controlled by the processor;
• receiving, with the processor, a first manual input from the operator of the DCM test bench selecting a particular graphical element from the plurality of graphical elements;
• and
• controlling, with the processor, the hardware device associated with the particular graphical element to generate and transmit a manually controlled signal to an electronic control unit (ECU) of the DCM of the vehicle;
• in response to the received selection indicating the automated DCM test procedure:
• receiving, with the processor, a second manual input from the operator of the DCM test bench selecting a predefined automated testing procedure script;
• and
• executing, with the processor, the predefined automated testing procedure script and controlling at least one hardware device of the plurality of hardware devices to generate and transmit a plurality of automatically controlled signals to the ECU of the DCM of the vehicle based on the execution of the predefined automated testing procedure script;
• generating, using the processor, a data log, wherein the data log indicates first operating characteristics of the ECU of the DCM of the vehicle in response to receiving the manually controlled signal when the manual DCM test procedure is selected and indicates second operating characteristics of the ECU of the DCM of the vehicle in response to receiving the automatically controlled signals when the automated DCM test procedure is selected;
• and
• generating, using the processor, a report based on the data log;
• wherein the manually controlled signal and the plurality of automatically controlled signals generated by the plurality of hardware devices each simulate one of (i) a signal transmitted by the vehicle and (ii) a signal received from a communications system.