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Test Case/Step Minimization for Visual Programming Language Models and Its Application to Space Systems

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2017 (ICCSA 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 10409))

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Abstract

Visual Programming Languages have been widely used in the context of Model-Based Development, and they find a particular appeal for the design of satellite subsystems, such as the Attitude and Orbit Control Subsystem (AOCS) which is an extremely complex part of a spacecraft. The software testing community has been trying to ensure high quality products with as few defects as possible. Given that exhaustive generation and execution of software test cases are unfeasible in practice, one of the initiatives is to reduce the sets of test cases required to test a Software/System Under Test, while still maintaining the efficiency (ability to find product defects, code coverage). This paper presents a new methodology to generate test cases for Visual Programming Language models, aiming at minimizing the set of test cases/steps but maintaining efficiency. The approach, called specification Patterns, modified Condition/Decision coverage, and formal Verification to support Testing (PCDVT), combines the Modified Decision/Condition Coverage (MC/DC) criterion, Model Checking, specification patterns, and a minimization approach by identifying irreplaceable tests in a single method, taking advantage of the benefits of all these efforts in a unified strategy. Results showed that two instances of PCDVT presented a lower cost (smaller number of test steps) and, basically, the same efficiency (model coverage) if compared with a specialist ad hoc approach. We used the AOCS model of a Brazilian satellite in order to make the comparison between the methods.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A test step is an atomic activity to prepare or stimulate the System/Software Under Test. The stimulus can contain the test input data and the expected results.

  2. 2.

    Note that, in these tables, the last row implies the total number of test steps and the mean MC/DC coverage.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Paulo Nolberto dos Santos Alarcon & Valdivino Alexandre de Santiago Júnior

Authors
  1. Paulo Nolberto dos Santos Alarcon
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  2. Valdivino Alexandre de Santiago Júnior
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Correspondence to Paulo Nolberto dos Santos Alarcon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  2. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  3. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  4. University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Giuseppe Borruso

  5. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo M. Torre

  6. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A.C. Rocha

  7. Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    David Taniar

  8. Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  9. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Stankova

  10. University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Alfredo Cuzzocrea

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dos Santos Alarcon, P.N., de Santiago Júnior, V.A. (2017). Test Case/Step Minimization for Visual Programming Language Models and Its Application to Space Systems. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2017. ICCSA 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10409. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62407-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62407-5_11

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