Integrated testing and verification system for research flight software design document

The NASA Langley Research Center is developing the MUST (Multipurpose User-oriented Software Technology) program to cut the cost of producing research flight software through a system of software support tools. The HAL/S language is the primary subject of the design. Boeing Computer Services Company (BCS) has designed an integrated verification and testing capability as part of MUST. Documentation, verification and test options are provided with special attention on real time, multiprocessing issues. The needs of the entire software production cycle have been considered, with effective management and reduced lifecycle costs as foremost goals. Capabilities have been included in the design for static detection of data flow anomalies involving communicating concurrent processes. Some types of ill formed process synchronization and deadlock also are detected statically

Testing and test-driven development of conceptual schemas

The traditional focus for Information Systems (IS) quality assurance relies on the evaluation of its implementation. However, the quality of an IS can be largely determined in the first stages of its development. Several studies reveal that more than half the errors that occur during systems development are requirements errors. A requirements error is defined as a mismatch between requirements specification and stakeholders¿ needs and expectations. Conceptual modeling is an essential activity in requirements engineering aimed at developing the conceptual schema of an IS. The conceptual schema is the general knowledge that an IS needs to know in order to perform its functions. A conceptual schema specification has semantic quality when it is valid and complete. Validity means that the schema is correct (the knowledge it defines is true for the domain) and relevant (the knowledge it defines is necessary for the system). Completeness means that the conceptual schema includes all relevant knowledge. The validation of a conceptual schema pursues the detection of requirements errors in order to improve its semantic quality. Conceptual schema validation is still a critical challenge in requirements engineering. In this work we contribute to this challenge, taking into account that, since conceptual schemas of IS can be specified in executable artifacts, they can be tested. In this context, the main contributions of this Thesis are (1) an approach to test conceptual schemas of information systems, and (2) a novel method for the incremental development of conceptual schemas supported by continuous test-driven validation. As far as we know, this is the first work that proposes and implements an environment for automated testing of UML/OCL conceptual schemas, and the first work that explores the use of test-driven approaches in conceptual modeling. The testing of conceptual schemas may be an important and practical means for their validation. It allows checking correctness and completeness according to stakeholders¿ needs and expectations. Moreover, in conjunction with the automatic check of basic test adequacy criteria, we can also analyze the relevance of the elements defined in the schema. The testing environment we propose requires a specialized language for writing tests of conceptual schemas. We defined the Conceptual Schema Testing Language (CSTL), which may be used to specify automated tests of executable schemas specified in UML/OCL. We also describe a prototype implementation of a test processor that makes feasible the approach in practice. The conceptual schema testing approach supports test-last validation of conceptual schemas, but it also makes sense to test incomplete conceptual schemas while they are developed. This fact lays the groundwork of Test-Driven Conceptual Modeling (TDCM), which is our second main contribution. TDCM is a novel conceptual modeling method based on the main principles of Test-Driven Development (TDD), an extreme programming method in which a software system is developed in short iterations driven by tests. We have applied the method in several case studies, in the context of Design Research, which is the general research framework we adopted. Finally, we also describe an integration approach of TDCM into a broad set of software development methodologies, including the Unified Process development methodology, MDD-based approaches, storytest-driven agile methods and goal and scenario-oriented requirements engineering methods.Els enfocaments per assegurar la qualitat deis sistemes d'informació s'han basal tradicional m en! en l'avaluació de la seva implementació. No obstan! aix6, la qualitat d'un sis tema d'informació pot ser ampliament determinada en les primeres fases del seu desenvolupament. Diversos estudis indiquen que més de la meitat deis errors de software són errors de requisits . Un error de requisit es defineix com una desalineació entre l'especificació deis requisits i les necessitats i expectatives de les parts im plicades (stakeholders ). La modelització conceptual és una activitat essencial en l'enginyeria de requisits , l'objectiu de la qual és desenvolupar !'esquema conceptual d'un sistema d'informació. L'esquema conceptual és el coneixement general que un sistema d'informació requereix per tal de desenvolupar les seves funcions . Un esquema conceptual té qualitat semantica quan és va lid i complet. La valides a implica que !'esquema sigui correcte (el coneixement definit és cert peral domini) i rellevant (el coneixement definit és necessari peral sistema). La completes a significa que !'esquema conceptual inclou tot el coneixement rellevant. La validació de !'esquema conceptual té coma objectiu la detecció d'errors de requisits per tal de millorar la qualitat semantica. La validació d'esquemes conceptuals és un repte crític en l'enginyeria de requisits . Aquesta te si contribueix a aquest repte i es basa en el fet que els es quemes conceptuals de sistemes d'informació poden ser especificats en artefactes executables i, per tant, poden ser provats. Les principals contribucions de la te si són (1) un enfocament pera les pro ves d'esquemes conceptuals de sistemes d'informació, i (2) una metodología innovadora pel desenvolupament incremental d'esquemes conceptuals assistit per una validació continuada basada en proves . Les pro ves d'esquemes conceptuals poden ser una im portant i practica técnica pera la se va validació, jaque permeten provar la correctesa i la completesa d'acord ambles necessitats i expectatives de les parts interessades. En conjunció amb la comprovació d'un conjunt basic de criteris d'adequació de les proves, també podem analitzar la rellevancia deis elements definits a !'esquema. L'entorn de test proposat inclou un llenguatge especialitzat per escriure proves automatitzades d'esquemes conceptuals, anomenat Conceptual Schema Testing Language (CSTL). També hem descrit i implementa! a un prototip de processador de tes tos que fa possible l'aplicació de l'enfocament proposat a la practica. D'acord amb l'estat de l'art en validació d'esquemes conceptuals , aquest és el primer treball que proposa i implementa un entorn pel testing automatitzat d'esquemes conceptuals definits en UML!OCL. L'enfocament de proves d'esquemes conceptuals permet dura terme la validació d'esquemes existents , pero també té sentit provar es quemes conceptuals incomplets m entre estant sent desenvolupats. Aquest fet és la base de la metodología Test-Driven Conceptual Modeling (TDCM), que és la segona contribució principal. El TDCM és una metodología de modelització conceptual basada en principis basics del Test-Driven Development (TDD), un métode de programació en el qual un sistema software és desenvolupat en petites iteracions guiades per proves. També hem aplicat el métode en diversos casos d'estudi en el context de la metodología de recerca Design Science Research. Finalment, hem proposat enfocaments d'integració del TDCM en diverses metodologies de desenvolupament de software

C# PROGRAM VERIFICATION PROBLEMS:\ud SOLUTION BY A THREE-LEVEL METHOD\ud

The evolution of formal methods allowed us to overcome many obstacles in verification of procedural programs. However, wide spreading of object-oriented languages has brought new challenges, even in the case of sequential programs. These problems were thoroughly exam-ined by ESC/Java and Spec#, though in many cases they just state the presence of the challenge. This paper presents an overview of some problematic issues and a three-level approach to their solution in the C#-light project.----------------\ud Развитие формальных методов позволило решить многие вопросы верификации процедурных программ. Однако, широкое распространение объектно-ориентированных языков выявило новые проблемы даже для последовательных программ. Эти проблемы были детально исследованы в проектах ESC/Java и Spec#, но решение предлагалось в редких случаях. В этой статье рассмотрены некоторые из проблем и их решение с помощью трехуровневого подхода в проекте C#-light.\u

OVM compliant verification for a wishbone compatible i2c master controller core

Increasing design complexity and concurrency of Integrated Circuits has made traditional directed testbenches an unworkable solution for testing. Today, testing as a word has been substituted with verification. Verification engineers have to ensure what goes to the factory for manufacturing is an accurate representation of the design specification. Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus is a very widely used communication protocol in embedded system design due to its hardware simplicity and high data transfer rates capability. Most ICs incorporate I2C interface. Thus the ASIC design process of these ICs calls for robust, independent and exhaustive verification to reduce the risks of their failures. Open Verification Methodology (OVM) is an open source verification methodology library intended to run on multiple platforms and be supported by multiple EDA vendors. This thesis attempts to study and hence introduces a comprehensive verification environment for the latest specifications of the I2C bus protocol realized in the OVM platform, a new industry standard for comprehensive verification due to its rich base classes and OOP features. This work has been challenging since very few work has been reported in this domain for reference