Testing equipment provider Comprion and software stack specialist Stollmann have announced a joint solution that allows the NFC Forum device test application testing process to be completely automated.

"When testing specific protocol or application behaviour, it is sometimes necessary to trigger certain communication patterns," the partners explain. "In the context of NFC testing, this is done by the so-called Device Test Application (DTA) specified by NFC Forum.

"Essentially, a DTA is an application residing on the Implementation Under Test (IUT) which will induce very specific communication data patterns on lower communication levels. This serves to verify device behaviour as required by NFC Forum test cases. DTAs usually consist of a huge collection of scripts matching a list of test cases.

"Often, a test operator starts a DTA script manually, then selects the respective test case and starts this as well. Here, the Stollmann and Comprion collaboration comes into the picture: We have agreed on a simple but powerful data exchange format which enables the configuration of a whole batch of test cases on a centralised server.

"The server communicates with both the IUT and the test management software and hence runs both in parallel, the DTA procedures and the matching test cases. This eliminates a lot of manual work steps which are prone to errors. An additional benefit of this fully automated approach is of course tremendously reduced test execution time."

The new solution will be on show on Comprion's stand (6C80) at Mobile World Congress 2013.