Time-optimal test cases for real-time systems

Abstract

Testing is the primary software validation technique used by industry today, but remains ad hoc, error prone, and very expensive. A promising improvement is to automatically generate test cases from formal models of the system under test. We demonstrate how to automatically generate real-time conformance test cases from timed automata specifications. Specifically we demonstrate how to efficiently generate real-time test cases with optimal execution time i.e test cases that are the fastest possible to execute. Our technique allows time optimal test cases to be generated using manually formulated test purposes or automatically from various coverage criteria of the model. © Springer-Verlag 2004.