Test Automation for HVDC System Protection A Proof of Concept for ABB

Sammanfattning: When a software is designed, one of the most critical aspects of the process is the verification. In most cases, this operation can betime consuming, which is why it is always needed to speed up the process by the use of automated tools to perform the task. ABB Power Grids Division uses a large software for monitoring the HVDC system, which is one of the high voltage power transmission systems they offer. This control and protection software is called MACH3, and it is created in a graphical programming development environment called HiDraw, which is proprietary to the company. HiDraw allows to design the code by using graphical blocks, which receive data as inputs, processes it and produces results at their outputs. Some critical functions of the software are presented in the form of individual graphical blocks, and during the software development they may need to be verified. Since some of these blocks can have a quite large amount of inputs and outputs, the verification process is lengthy, and hence, the company is looking for ways to automate it. This project shows the design details of two tester modules created in the HiDraw graphical programming environment to perform the verification of two blocks used inside the MACH3 control and protection software. It is initially presented the characterization made for the logical behaviour of the two blocks to be verified, which was done by using Signal Temporal Logic (STL) language.Following, it is presented the two tester modules created in the HiDraw environment, which assess all the requirements previously defined in STL for the two blocks under test. This assessment is done by means of a predefined set of inputs that the testers feed to the blocks under test, and by verifying whether their outputs satisfy the requirements or not. The testers automatically run the set of test inputs in sequence, and produce outputs indicating if the tests have been passed or not. The implementation of this kind of testers can reduce the time invested by the ABB personnel on performing regression tests that are usually done manually. The proposed testersare incorporated as part of the MACH3 system, and run on its embedded computers. It is also presented the alternatives that were considered for automating the verification and the decision process that took place to choose the presented alternative.