A Guided Method for Testing Timed Input Output Automata

Abstract

Abstract. Real-time systems are those systems whose behaviors are time dependent. Reliability is one of the characteristics of such systems and testing is one of the techniques that can be used to ensure reliable real-time systems. This paper presents a method for testing real-time systems specified by Timed Input Output Automata (TIOA). Our method is based on the concept of test purposes. The use of test purposes helps reduce the number of test cases generated since an exhaustive testing of a TIOA causes the well-known state explosion problem. The approach we present in this paper consists of three main steps. First, a synchronous product of the specification and test purpose is computed. Then, a subautomaton (called Grid Automata) representing a subset of the state space of this product is derived. Finally, test cases are generated from the resulting grid automata. The test cases generated by our method are executable and can easily be represented in TTCN (Tabular Tree Combined Notation).

A scalable method for testing real-time systems

“…Compared to Koné et al (1998), Salva et al (2001) and En-Nouaary and Dssouli (2003), the method proposed in this paper is based on an exhaustive testing of TIOA and not on test purposes, and therefore, our method has better fault coverage. Moreover, the methods proposed in Koné et al (1998), Salva et al (2001), En-Nouaary andDssouli (2003), Higashino et al (1999), and necessitate a considerable number of transformations prior to test generation and hence they are much more complex than the approach introduced here.…”

“…Moreover, the methods proposed in Koné et al (1998), Salva et al (2001), En-Nouaary andDssouli (2003), Higashino et al (1999), and necessitate a considerable number of transformations prior to test generation and hence they are much more complex than the approach introduced here. Our method always generates executable test cases, in addition to being a simpler process.…”

“…Over the last two decades, several algorithms have been developed for testing real-time systems (e.g., Cardell-Oliver & Glover, 1998;Clarke & Lee, 1997;En-Nouaary & Dssouli, 2003;En-Nouaary et al, 1998, 2002Fecko, Amer, Uyar, & Duale, 2000;Higashino, Nakata, Taniguchi, & Cavalli, 1999;Khoumsi, Akalay, Dssouli, En-Nouaary, & Granger, 2000;Koné, Laurencot, & Castanet, 1998;Nielsen & Skou, 1998;Salva, Petitjean, & Fouchal, 2001;Springintveld et al, 2001). These methods differ from one another on the formal specification model used, the technique adopted for test generation, and the number of resulting test cases as well as their test coverage.…”

Optimal tester synthesis for real-time systems

“…Ces techniques ontété appliquées aussi au test des systèmes temps réel. En-Nouaary et al [9]étendent la méthode WP pour le test des TIOA en utilisant l'automate de grilles construità partir du graphe des régions [1]. Cardell-Oliver [6] utilise les automates temporisés d'Uppaall et la sélection par vue (observateur) pour réduire le nombre de tests générés.…”

${\cal T}\! {\cal H} {\cal O} {\cal T}\! {\cal L}$ : A Timed Extension of ${\cal H} {\cal O} {\cal T}\! {\cal L}$

“…Even though there exist several proposals to test timed systems (for example, [22,11,7,10,9,12,5,13,2,17]), these proposals suffer from the same rigidity previously commented. The first decision to define the new framework, that we call THOTL, is to consider a formal language to represent timed systems.…”