Testing for Dependable Embedded Software

Embedded software is being increasingly used for the purpose of providing services with high reliability demands, as in case of software-based controllers for safety-relevant applications. Tests are usually carried out in several phases of the software life-cycle, each time addressing a different level of refinement and aiming at a corresponding degree of coverage of the object under test. In this sense, each testing strategy may be seen as a particular instantiation of a model-based verification approach, where the term “model” may be taken to reflect the software behavior at different levels of granularity. This article aims at a comparative evaluation of testing techniques for embedded software in terms of the effort they require and of the fault detection capability they offer. Furthermore, it illustrates a number of newly developed approaches capable of providing support to arbitrary testing techniques by instantiation at specific granularity levels.