Evaluating distributed real-time and embedded system test correctness using system execution traces

Abstract

Effective validation of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) system quality-of-service (QoS) properties (e.g., event prioritization, latency, and throughput) requires testing system capabilities in representative execution environments. Unfortunately, evaluating the correctness of such tests is hard since it requires validating many states dispersed across many hardware and software components. To address this problem, this article presents a method called Test Execution (TE) Score for validating execution correctness of DRE system tests and empirically evaluates TE Score in the context of a representative DRE system. Results from this evaluation show that TE Score can determine the percentage correctness in test execution, and facilitate trade-off analysis of execution states, thereby increasing confidence in QoS assurance and improving test quality.