RTLS is Real-Time Locating System that helps in tracking and indentifying the location of items in real time.RTLS use technologies like Active RFID.
Last 3 years I have been working as a QA Manager in a software company that deal a lot with applications based on RTLS and active RFID; applications like People Tracking, Laydownyard management, and vehicle tracking.
There are some specific challenges in testing RTLS applications that are not involved in other applications. Let’s see three of the major challenges.
The biggest challenge is the sheer volume of data that the application has to deal with. RTLS data volume can be like hundreds of reads per second. In order to determine the real time position of an object, RTLS devices can send reads every few milliseconds. The application has to decide what to do with such huge volume of data. The challenge for testers is to simulate the huge volume of data in absence of a RTLS device. And when the data is simulated, verifying the results becomes a huge task. But it needs to be done. No use shying away from it. So patience is the key to success here. Testers need to study log files to find errors and to ensure that each and every piece of data is being processed. They need to monitor the system continuously for hours or days to find loopholes. Stability testing is absolutely necessary and cannot be ignored for a RTLS application.
Another challenge that we face while testing with RTLS is identifying what should be the best performance in a given situation. In situations where people are being tracked, they are very mobile and the position can change very fast. So the reporting needs to be as fast as possible for it to be real time. But in applications like Laydownyard Mgmt, the items move once in a day or once in few days. In such applications, a few seconds or a few minutes delay in identifying the position will not affect the functions. So before we do performance testing, we have to study the use case and objective of the application very carefully. Based on the expected performance, the application should be designed. So tester needs to be aware of it and Performance test should be planned accordingly.
The final challenge that I want to mention here is to determine the scalability of a RTLS application. For this also, we need to study the objective and know the users of the application. If it is a tracking application, then we need to know how many items are being tracked and whether that number will increase in future. There is a difference in tackling the data in following two situations even though the ultimate data volume may be same:
- Data for same item received continuously
- Data for multiple items received continuously
If there is scope for increasing the number of items to be tracked, the application design should accommodate it and testers need to test with maximum data possible.
Another aspect of scalability is increase in the number of devices which is going to increase the volume of data received by the application. So if there is a scope of increase in the numbers of devices, testers need to make sure the application can handle it. So scalability testing is very important and challenging too for RTLS applications.
