An Energy-aware Mutation Testing Framework for EAST-ADL Architectural Models

TL;DR

This paper presents an energy-aware mutation testing framework for EAST-ADL architectural models, introducing mutants, a method to address equivalent mutants, and a test generation approach using UPPAAL SMC, enhancing testing efficiency for embedded systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel energy-aware mutation testing framework for EAST-ADL models, including mutant creation, a method to handle equivalent mutants, and a test generation approach with the MATS tool.

Findings

Energy-aware mutants effectively simulate energy consumption variations.

The approach improves test case effectiveness in distinguishing mutants.

The MATS tool facilitates mutation-based test selection for EAST-ADL models.

Abstract

Early design artifacts of embedded systems, such as architectural models, represent convenient abstractions for reasoning about a system's structure and functionality. One such example is the Electronic Architecture and Software Tools-Architecture Description Language (EAST-ADL), a domain-specific architectural language that targets the automotive industry. EAST-ADL is used to represent both hardware and software elements, as well as related extra-functional information (e.g., timing properties, triggering information, resource consumption). Testing architectural models is an important activity in engineering large-scale industrial systems, which sparks a growing research interest. The main contributions of this paper are: (i) an approach for creating energy-related mutants for EAST-ADL architectural models, (ii) a method for overcoming the equivalent mutant problem (i.e., the problem of finding a test case which can distinguish the observable behavior of a mutant from the original one), (iii) a test generation approach based on UPPAAL Statistical Model Checker (SMC), and (iv) a test selection criteria based on mutation analysis using our MATS tool.