@article{GENERAL,
      recid = {11155},
      author = {Ageneau, Q and Nulac, G},
      title = {Continuous integration for the development of a  COLREG-compliant decision support system},
      journal = {Conference Proceedings of iSCSS},
      address = {2024-11-05},
      number = {GENERAL},
      abstract = {The recent development in the field of autonomous  navigation at sea is moving the focus from theoretical work  and lab experiments to industrial solutions for the market.  The move from the lab to the industry raises the question  of the ability to deliver a consistent, dependable  autonomous navigation capability to shipowners. One aspect  is the hardware architecture, the dependability of which is  traditionally ensured by applying long-standing, mature  norms and guidelines (IEC61508, class regulations and  guidelines). Another is the confidence that can be placed  in the software. The three questions are: 
-	how do the  algorithms perform in terms of computational time,  relevance of the proposed routes, repeatability, accuracy?  This question is addressed with quantitative performance  evaluations (see paper by Unige, SafeNav session). 
-	have  the algorithms been implemented correctly in the embedded  software that will be deployed onboard? The answer is more  of a Boolean type, and the related industry standard is  software tests and Continuous Integration (CI). 
-	how does  the system perform as a whole, once the software has been  deployed and integrated with other soft- and hard-ware?  This is addressed with Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing  and the well-known industrial processes of Factory  Acceptance Tests (FAT), Harbour Acceptance Tests (HAT) and  Sea Acceptance Tests (SAT).
We have focused on the second  aspect of software dependability, applied to a Decision  Support System (DSS) whose role is to raise alerts and  issue COLREG-based recommendations whenever a hazardous  situation is identified at sea. We have implemented a  Software-In-the-Loop (SIL) environment that can be used  with CI tools to validate automatically that the  recommendations and alerts issued by the DSS are consistent  with the COLREG. 
A major difference with simulations used  for assessing the overall performance of algorithms (e.g.,  with Monte Carlo methods), is the need for exact  repeatability: in a software-test context, developers need  to be able to replay test scenarios exactly, to investigate  why tests pass or fail. In this paper we present the test  environment and discuss the constraints in terms of  configuration management induced by the use of simulation  in a CI context, including for the multi-agent simulator  and the parameterization of test scenarios.},
      url = {http://library.imarest.org/record/11155},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.24868/11155},
}