Fault detection in embedded components

Abstract

We address in this paper the problem of detecting faults located in a given component embedded within a composite system. The system is represented as two communicating FSMs, a component FSM inaccessible for testing and a context machine that models the remaining part of the system which is assumed to be correctly implemented. We elaborate a systematic approach for deriving external tests which can detect all predefined types of faults in the embedded component. .The approach. is based on the construction a proper characterization of the conforming behavior of the component in context, derivation of internal tests and translation into external tests.

FSM Test Translation Through Context

“…The problem of translating InTest is to determine an external test (if it exists) with the same fault detection power, i.e., to determine an external test case that detects each IOTS MAX || Context || Imp, where Imp ∈ ℑ InTest (Emb). The problem is called the test translation or the fault propagation problem [2,7].…”

“…A number of test derivation methods have been proposed for testing in context [5,6,7,9,10] when the system components are modeled as Finite State Machines (FSMs). Some of these methods derive test suites with the guaranteed fault coverage directly from the embedded component [7,9,10].…”

“…Some of these methods derive test suites with the guaranteed fault coverage directly from the embedded component [7,9,10]. However, such tests are generated in the form of input/output sequences defined over the input/output alphabets of the embedded machine.…”

“…The problem of translating internal tests into external ones is known as the fault propagation or test translation problem. Different approaches for solving the translation problem for the case when the internal interactions between the component machines are unobservable are given in [2,7].…”

Different Approaches to Protocol and Service Testing

“…On the other hand, the purpose of testing can be to test only some system components in order to avoid the redundant testing of other parts of the system. In this case, we are concerned with embedded testing or testing in context [24,26,28,30,29,23,13].…”