Automated Integration Testing
“Our ambition is to develop robots in simulation first. We want to write software against virtual robots, test it in realistic simulations, verify safety on a real robot, and deploy.” [1]
- Andrew Marchese, Amazon Principal Research Scientist
During the initial development of Amazon's "Robin" stations, or Robotic Induct stations, all software testing happened on a physical station. Errors were sometimes difficult to reproduce, and each new feature required a long test process.
I coordinated with the simulation team to automatically launch their physics based simulation using AWS EC2, as part of a Test on Demand (TOD) step in the Robin Deployment Pipeline.
By simulating the Robin station, we...
Accelerated software development
Caught integration errors in Robin code prior to deployment
Were able to replay complex failure scenarios exactly as they had occurred in production
A simulated Robin induct [1]
References
[1] Brown, Alan S. “At Amazon Robotics, simulation gains traction.” Amazon Science, Amazon Science, 8 Apr. 2022, https://www.amazon.science/latest-news/at-amazon-robotics-simulation-gains-traction