ASAM XIL

ASAM XIL is an API standard for the communication between test automation tools and test benches. The standard supports test benches at all stages of the development and testing process – most prominently model-in-the-loop (MIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL). The notation "XIL" indicates that the standard can be used for all "in-the-loop" systems. This has the advantage that it enables users to freely choose testing products according to their requirements and integrate them with little effort. Using ASAM XIL-compliant products allows users of test systems to mix and match the best components from different suppliers without having costly integration efforts.

The standard furthermore decouples test-cases from real and virtual test systems. This allows to transfer tests between different test systems with little to no migration effort. Consequently, tests can be easily re-used. Know-how is much easier transferred from one test bench to another, resulting in reduced training costs for development- and test engineers.

These advantages are the result of two major components of the ASAM XIL standard:

• the framework, which provides data measuring and mapping functionality independent from the used test bench hardware and software.
• the test bench, which provides port-based communication means to the simulation model, the ECU, the electrical subsystem and the ECU network.

Test automation applications, which use the ASAM XIL API, are used in all automotive E/E domains, e.g. drivetrain, steering, electric lighting, etc. Cross tests for ASAM XIL implementations are carried out regularly to ensure compatibility between test automation software and test benches.

The standard comes with a C# source code library, which contains open source software that can be used by framework developers to implement the XIL API. It covers about 69% of the standard's API methods. Provided methods are unit and data type conversion, reading mapping files, mathematical operations, and more. The source code has been professionally developed and constitutes a standard-compliant implementation of significant parts of the ASAM XIL API.

Standard Authors

AUDI AG, AVL LIST GmbH, Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH, BMW AG, Continental Automotive GmbH , D2T, Daimler AG, dSPACE GmbH, ETAS GmbH, HORIBA Automotive Test Systems GmbH, M&K Mess- und Kommunikationstechnik GmbH, MBtech Group GmbH & Co. KGaA, National Instrument Corporation, RA-Consulting GmbH, Robert Bosch GmbH, Softing Automotive Electronics GmbH, TraceTronic GmbH, Vector Informatik GmbH.