Can Commercial Testing Automation Tools Work for IoT? A Case Study of Selenium and Node-Red

Abstract

Background: Testing IoT software is challenging due to large scale, volume of data and heterogeneity. Testing automation is a much-needed feature in the domain. Aims: The first goal of this research is to explore the requirements and challenges of IoT testing automation. The second goal is to integrate testing automation tools used in commercial software into the IoT context. Method: A systematic literature review is carried out to elicit requirements for testing automation in IoT. A design science approach is followed to build a testing automation tool for IoT applications written in the Node-Red platform, using the commercial testing automation tool Selenium. The resulting framework uses the Selenium Web Driver for browser-based testing automation for IoT applications. Results: The proposed framework has been functionally tested on multiple browsers with preliminary evaluation on maintainability, browser capability and comprehensiveness. Conclusions: The use of commercial tools for testing automation in IoT is feasible. However, major challenges like high data volumes and parallel transmission and processing of data need to be addressed comprehensively for complete integration.