Observability-based coverage-directed path search using PBO for automatic test vector generation

Costa, José Lino; Monteiro, José

doi:10.1109/vlsisoc.2009.6041346

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The approach we use in our problem of finding a path with the given restrictions is based on Pseudo-Boolean Optimization (PBO) [Costa and Monteiro 2009b], where for each vertex in the DAG a Boolean variable is assigned. Knowing the number of statements in each edge of the DAG and the Boolean expression that allow the execution of that edge, the cost function of the PBO problem is obtained.…”

Section: Computation Of the Longest Pathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage-directed observability-based validation for embedded software

Costa

Monteiro

2013

ACM Trans. Des. Autom. Electron. Syst.

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Motivated by the need for validation methodologies for embedded systems we propose a method for embedded software testing that can be integrated with existing hardware methods. Existing coverage-directed validation methods guarantee the execution of a certain percentage of the program code under test. Yet they do not generally verify whether the statements executed have any influence on the program's output. In the proposed method, a program statement is considered covered not simply for belonging to the executed path, but only if its execution has influence in some observable output. The paths are generated by searching the longest path in terms of the number of statements in the path. Given that not all paths are valid, we check their feasibility using a method based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Variable aliasing is accounted for by representing variables by their memory addresses when building this MILP problem. In this manner, for feasible paths, we obtain immediately the input values that allow the execution of the path. Using these inputs, we determine the statements actually observed. We repeat this process until a user-specified level of coverage has been achieved. In the generation of each new path, the statement coverage obtained so far and the feasibility of previous paths is taken into account. We present results that demonstrate the effectiveness of this methodology.

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Section: Computation Of the Longest Pathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage-directed observability-based validation for embedded software

Costa

Monteiro

2013

ACM Trans. Des. Autom. Electron. Syst.

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“…Lu et al [9] developed a simulationbased vector generation procedure for the observabilityenhanced statement coverage metric, which uses a genetic algorithm with the distribution of unobserved statements as heuristic information. Costa et al [10] modeled the problem to acquire the path with the greatest number of statements as a pseudo-Boolean optimization problem, and found a minimal set of execution paths that ensures a user-specified level of observability statement coverage for embedded software programs.…”

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confidence: 99%

Path constraint solving based test generation for observability-enhanced branch coverage

Zhou

Wang

et al. 2016

2016 IEEE 34th VLSI Test Symposium (VTS)

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Traditional coverage metrics in verification focus on controllability without taking observability into account, which may result in an artificially high coverage and a false sense of confidence. In this paper, we present a path constraint solving based test generation method at register-transfer level (RTL) for observability-enhanced branch coverage. The branches executed but not observed by a test sequence are identified as our target branches. The test generation for each target branch is converted to the process of covering multiple intermediate sub-target states sequentially to guarantee the execution and observation of the target branch. Valid input vectors are automatically generated by multicycle path constraint solving and simulation is guided by the abstract distance information to reach the sub-target states. Experimental results show that our approach can reduce the gap between branch coverage and observability-enhanced branch coverage.

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Observability-based coverage-directed path search using PBO for automatic test vector generation

Cited by 2 publications

References 16 publications

Coverage-directed observability-based validation for embedded software

Coverage-directed observability-based validation for embedded software

Path constraint solving based test generation for observability-enhanced branch coverage

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