Automating test case generation for the new generation mission software system
Yu-Wen Tung, W.S. Aldiwan · 2002
The significant expansion of autonomous control and information processing capabilities in the coming generation of mission software systems results in a qualitatively larger space of behaviors that needs to be "covered" during testing, not only at the system level but also at subsystem and unit levels. A major challenge in this area is to automatically generate a relatively small set of test cases that, collectively, guarantees a selected degree of coverage of the behavior space. This paper describes an algorithm for a parametric test case generation tool that applies a combinatorial design approach to the selection of candidate test cases. Evaluation of this algorithm on test parameters from the Deep Space One mission reveals a valuable reduction in the number of test cases, when compared to an earlier home-brewed generator.