Axini develops tools for model based testing (MBT) and model based software engineering (MBSE). Model based testing is a software testing approach in which test cases are automatically generated and executed from a model, a formal specification of the system under test. This approach allows for a high degree of test automation and more thorough testing.
One of the challenges in gaming is testing. A big and important part of testing is manual testing done by a human. There are also automated tests and it is a big challenge to keep them running. To thoroughly test a game we need thousands of test-scripts and this is a big challenge to make and maintain. Wouldn’t it be great to have automated testing without the need to program test-scripts and test-data. Look no further, that technique exists and is called model-based-testing, also known as no-code scriptless testing. Axini is a leader in the development and application of model-based testing with their Axini Modeling Platform. Axini is wondering how model-based testing can be applied to gaming.
In this research project we want to connect Axini toolset with a game engine, such as Unity. This game engine allows for creating two- and three-dimensional games, as well as interactive simulations. Using its scripting API, one can provide input behavior for a game. What if we could use model-based testing to provide such an input behavior? Can we then test games in this way? We already did a proof of concept together with the University of Utrecht which works very nicely with their agent technology. Jade Leurs did her graduation work on model-based testing of 3D games and already got some interesting results. However, the problem is not yet solved, so there is more than enough to research.
One of the directions of work within this topic is using the game engine for testing real-life (hardware) systems, instead of games. For example, we could consider modeling cars and robots in Unity and then applying Axini platform to test them. We have experience of using such an approach with so-called digital twins.
This research project can run in collaboration with researchers from the University of Utrecht (Wishnu Prasetya) and Open University (Tanja Vos).
Possible research questions
There are several puzzles and research questions that students can work on.
Recent work
Recent work at Axini on this topic:
- Currently Jade Leurs is working on testing 3D games using model based testing.
- PoC with University of Utrecht (Wishnu Prasetya) and Open University (Tanja Vos).