Xest: An Automated Framework for Regression Testing of Embedded Software

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Language

eng

Publication Date

2010

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Source Publication

Proceedings of the 2010 Workshop on Embedded Systems Education (WESE '10)

Source ISSN

978-1-4503-0521-1

Abstract

As embedded systems permeate an ever-widening circle of safety- and mission-critical applications, robust testing of embedded software remains of paramount importance. Yet narrow I/O channels, scarce memory and processor resources, real-time and interrupt-driven behavior, and low-level source languages make state-of-the-art validation techniques much more difficult in an embedded context. For students, for whom testing is often already a secondary concern, the challenges in methodical testing of embedded systems can appear insurmountable. We present the Xinu External Suite Tester (XEST) framework, a tool for automated, parallelized regression testing of embedded software kernels running directly on real embedded hardware. We discuss the requirements for such a system, and evaluate its power as both a quality control mechanism in an actively developing system and as an assessment tool for students in conjunction with the Embedded Xinu experimental laboratory.

Comments

Published in Proceedings of the 2010 Workshop on Embedded Systems Education (WESE '10). DOI.

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