Evaluating System-Level Test Generation for Industrial Software: A Comparison between Manual, Combinatorial and Model-Based Testing

Adequate testing of safety-critical systems is vital to ensure correct functional and non-functional operations. Previous research has shown that testing such systems requires a lot of effort, thus automated testing techniques have found a certain degree of success. However, automated testing has no...

Celý popis

Uloženo v:
Podrobná bibliografie
Vydáno v:Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automation of Software Test s. 148 - 159
Hlavní autoři: Zafar, Muhammad Nouman, Afzal, Wasif, Enoiu, Eduard
Médium: Konferenční příspěvek
Jazyk:angličtina
Vydáno: ACM 01.05.2022
Témata:
On-line přístup:Získat plný text
Tagy: Přidat tag
Žádné tagy, Buďte první, kdo vytvoří štítek k tomuto záznamu!
Abstract Adequate testing of safety-critical systems is vital to ensure correct functional and non-functional operations. Previous research has shown that testing such systems requires a lot of effort, thus automated testing techniques have found a certain degree of success. However, automated testing has not replaced the need for manual testing, rather a common industrial practice exhibits a balance between automated and manual testing. In this respect, comparing manual testing with automated testing techniques continues to be an interesting topic to investigate. The need for this investigation is most apparent at system-level testing of industrial systems, where there is a lack of results on how different testing techniques perform concerning both structural and system-level metrics such as Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC) and requirement coverage. In addition to the coverage, the cost of these techniques will also determine their efficiency and thus practical viability. In this paper, we have developed cost models for efficiency measurement and performed an experimental evaluation of manual testing, model-based testing (MBT), and combinatorial testing (CT) in terms of MC/DC and requirement coverage. The evaluation is done in an industrial context of a safety-critical system that controls several functions on-board the passenger trains. We have reported the dominant conditions of MC/DC affected by each technique while generating MC/DC adequate test suites. Moreover, we investigated differences and overlaps of test cases generated by each of the three techniques. The results showed that all test suites achieved 100% requirement coverage except the test suite generated by the pairwise testing strategy. However, MBT-generated test suites were more MC/DC adequate and provided a higher number of both similar and unique test cases. Moreover, unique test cases generated by MBT had an observable effect on MC/DC, which will complement manual testing to increase MC/DC coverage. The least dominant MC/DC condition fulfilled by the generated test cases by all three techniques is the 'independent effect of a condition on the outcomes of a decision'. Lastly, the evaluation also showed CT as the most efficient testing technique amongst the three in terms of time required for test generation and execution, but with an added cost parameter of manual identification of expected outcomes. CCS CONCEPTS *Computer systems organization →Embedded software; * Software and its engineering →Software verification and validation.
AbstractList Adequate testing of safety-critical systems is vital to ensure correct functional and non-functional operations. Previous research has shown that testing such systems requires a lot of effort, thus automated testing techniques have found a certain degree of success. However, automated testing has not replaced the need for manual testing, rather a common industrial practice exhibits a balance between automated and manual testing. In this respect, comparing manual testing with automated testing techniques continues to be an interesting topic to investigate. The need for this investigation is most apparent at system-level testing of industrial systems, where there is a lack of results on how different testing techniques perform concerning both structural and system-level metrics such as Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC) and requirement coverage. In addition to the coverage, the cost of these techniques will also determine their efficiency and thus practical viability. In this paper, we have developed cost models for efficiency measurement and performed an experimental evaluation of manual testing, model-based testing (MBT), and combinatorial testing (CT) in terms of MC/DC and requirement coverage. The evaluation is done in an industrial context of a safety-critical system that controls several functions on-board the passenger trains. We have reported the dominant conditions of MC/DC affected by each technique while generating MC/DC adequate test suites. Moreover, we investigated differences and overlaps of test cases generated by each of the three techniques. The results showed that all test suites achieved 100% requirement coverage except the test suite generated by the pairwise testing strategy. However, MBT-generated test suites were more MC/DC adequate and provided a higher number of both similar and unique test cases. Moreover, unique test cases generated by MBT had an observable effect on MC/DC, which will complement manual testing to increase MC/DC coverage. The least dominant MC/DC condition fulfilled by the generated test cases by all three techniques is the 'independent effect of a condition on the outcomes of a decision'. Lastly, the evaluation also showed CT as the most efficient testing technique amongst the three in terms of time required for test generation and execution, but with an added cost parameter of manual identification of expected outcomes. CCS CONCEPTS *Computer systems organization →Embedded software; * Software and its engineering →Software verification and validation.
Author Zafar, Muhammad Nouman
Enoiu, Eduard
Afzal, Wasif
Author_xml – sequence: 1
  givenname: Muhammad Nouman
  surname: Zafar
  fullname: Zafar, Muhammad Nouman
  email: muhammad.nouman.zafar@mdh.se
  organization: Mälardalen University,Sweden
– sequence: 2
  givenname: Wasif
  surname: Afzal
  fullname: Afzal, Wasif
  email: wasif.afzal@mdh.se
  organization: Mälardalen University,Sweden
– sequence: 3
  givenname: Eduard
  surname: Enoiu
  fullname: Enoiu, Eduard
  email: eduard.enoiu@mdh.se
  organization: Mälardalen University,Sweden
BookMark eNotjctOAjEUhmuiiYqsXbjpAzjYy1xad0gQSSAuwDU5nZ6aMUNLpgXC2hd3RFff4vsvt-TSB4-E3HM24jwvnmQh8lzxUc9KyOKCDHWlesGkFqpk12QY4xdjTKiKc1HckO_pAdo9pMZ_0tUpJtxmCzxgS9cYE52hx66XwVMXOjr3dh9T10BLV8GlI3T4TMd0ErY76JrYpwymI6KnS_B7aB9_lWk8pHAugbd0GSy22QtEtOeP_viOXDloIw7_OSAfr9P15C1bvM_mk_EiA6HylMnSKKZqzWWtS0SnreWscKZ0gIXoocA4IawwNVruOBh0NSCXjBluoZYD8vC32yDiZtc1W-hOG13pMmda_gCzxWOo
CODEN IEEPAD
ContentType Conference Proceeding
DBID 6IE
6IL
CBEJK
ESBDL
RIE
RIL
DOI 10.1145/3524481.3527235
DatabaseName IEEE Electronic Library (IEL) Conference Proceedings
IEEE Xplore POP ALL
IEEE Xplore All Conference Proceedings
Open Access资源_IEL Journals
IEEE Xplore
IEEE Proceedings Order Plans (POP All) 1998-Present
DatabaseTitleList
Database_xml – sequence: 1
  dbid: RIE
  name: IEEE Electronic Library (IEL)
  url: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/
  sourceTypes: Publisher
DeliveryMethod fulltext_linktorsrc
EISBN 9781450392860
1450392865
EndPage 159
ExternalDocumentID 9796409
Genre orig-research
GrantInformation_xml – fundername: Vinnova
  funderid: 10.13039/501100001858
GroupedDBID 6IE
6IL
ACM
ALMA_UNASSIGNED_HOLDINGS
APO
CBEJK
ESBDL
GUFHI
LHSKQ
RIE
RIL
ID FETCH-LOGICAL-a284t-36b808c913c96eef9dd105fb6fae52b6f8abf22d2bced1f1abefcae1300b1dac3
IEDL.DBID RIE
ISICitedReferencesCount 8
ISICitedReferencesURI http://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=Summon&SrcAuth=ProQuest&DestLinkType=CitingArticles&DestApp=WOS_CPL&KeyUT=000850254300016&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com%2F%23%21%2Fsearch%3Fho%3Df%26include.ft.matches%3Dt%26l%3Dnull%26q%3D
IngestDate Wed Aug 27 02:51:38 EDT 2025
IsDoiOpenAccess true
IsOpenAccess true
IsPeerReviewed false
IsScholarly false
Language English
LinkModel DirectLink
MergedId FETCHMERGED-LOGICAL-a284t-36b808c913c96eef9dd105fb6fae52b6f8abf22d2bced1f1abefcae1300b1dac3
OpenAccessLink https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9796409
PageCount 12
ParticipantIDs ieee_primary_9796409
PublicationCentury 2000
PublicationDate 2022-May
PublicationDateYYYYMMDD 2022-05-01
PublicationDate_xml – month: 05
  year: 2022
  text: 2022-May
PublicationDecade 2020
PublicationTitle Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automation of Software Test
PublicationTitleAbbrev AST
PublicationYear 2022
Publisher ACM
Publisher_xml – name: ACM
SSID ssj0002871125
Score 1.8697959
Snippet Adequate testing of safety-critical systems is vital to ensure correct functional and non-functional operations. Previous research has shown that testing such...
SourceID ieee
SourceType Publisher
StartPage 148
SubjectTerms Automation
Combinatorial testing
Control systems
Costs
Manuals
Measurement
Organizations
Safety Critical Systems
System-level Tests
Test Coverage
Test Generation
Title Evaluating System-Level Test Generation for Industrial Software: A Comparison between Manual, Combinatorial and Model-Based Testing
URI https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9796409
WOSCitedRecordID wos000850254300016&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com%2F%23%21%2Fsearch%3Fho%3Df%26include.ft.matches%3Dt%26l%3Dnull%26q%3D
hasFullText 1
inHoldings 1
isFullTextHit
isPrint
link http://cvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwlV1LSwMxEA61ePCk0opvcvDYtPvK7sablhYPtRSs0luZPFYEWaW2-gP8485kl60HL56yD5aBCZuZSeb7PsauksDmGWDmFkgbi0SaXIDUGickNYABJgNPYPo0yabTfLFQsxbrNVgY55xvPnN9uvRn-fbNbGirbKAIN0lovZ0sSyusVrOfQpk_BuuavSdM5ABTC6w9wj6OWURybr_kU3z0GO__z-4B625heHzWBJhD1nJlh32Pan7u8plXdONiQo0_fI7rO69YpMnZHLNRvhXm4A-43n7Byl3zGz5sxAd53afF74G4SXv0CmtlqsTpIygtJ7W0V3GL0c56G2i4yx7Ho_nwTtRKCgIw_KxFnOo8yI0KY6NS5wplLeZVhU4LcDLCIQddRJGNtHE2LELQrjDg6KhLhxZMfMTa5VvpjhkPjNSFlanGzCaRCn9gazUovM9S0MqcsA45cPlekWUsa9-d_v34jO1FhCfwHYTnrL1ebdwF2zWf65eP1aWf4R_NAquW
linkProvider IEEE
linkToHtml http://cvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwlV1LS8NAEF6KCnpSacW3e_DYtHltkvWmpaViWgpW6a3MPiKCpFJb_QH-cWeSkHrw4mnzIAzMkv1mduf7hrHr0DVJDBi5ucIETih04oBQCick0oAAE0MhYPqcxuNxMpvJSYO1ay6MtbYoPrMduizO8s1Cr2mrrCuJN0lsvW0RYt5TsrXqHRWK_RGuK_0eLxRdDC4w-_A6OMY-NXT71UClwI_B_v8sH7DWhojHJzXEHLKGzZvsu18pdOcvvBQcd1Iq_eFTXOF5qSNN7uYYj_JNaw7-iCvuFyztDb_lvbr9IK8qtfgISJ20Ta8wW6ZcnD6C3HDql_bm3CHemcIGGm6xp0F_2hs6VS8FBxCAVk4QqcRNtPQCLSNrM2kMRlaZijKwwschAZX5vvGVtsbLPFA202DpsEt5BnRwxLbyRW6PGXe1UJkRkcLYJhQSf2FjFEi8jyNQUp-wJjlw_l7KZcwr353-_fiK7Q6no3Se3o8fztieT-yCop7wnG2tlmt7wXb05-r1Y3lZzPYP4Suu3Q
openUrl ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=proceeding&rft.title=Proceedings+of+the+3rd+ACM%2FIEEE+International+Conference+on+Automation+of+Software+Test&rft.atitle=Evaluating+System-Level+Test+Generation+for+Industrial+Software%3A+A+Comparison+between+Manual%2C+Combinatorial+and+Model-Based+Testing&rft.au=Zafar%2C+Muhammad+Nouman&rft.au=Afzal%2C+Wasif&rft.au=Enoiu%2C+Eduard&rft.date=2022-05-01&rft.pub=ACM&rft.spage=148&rft.epage=159&rft_id=info:doi/10.1145%2F3524481.3527235&rft.externalDocID=9796409