Automatic test generation for the analysis of a real-time system: Case study

We present a framework for testing timing constraints of real-time systems. Our tests are automatically derived from specifications of minimum and maximum allowable delays between input/output events in the execution of a system. Our test derivation scheme uses a graphical specification formalism for timing constraints, and the real-time process algebra Algebra of Communicating Shared Resources (ACSR) for representing tests and process models. The use of ACSR to describe test sequences has two main advantages. First, tests can be applied to an ACSR model of the software system within the ACSR semantic framework for model validation purposes. Second, ACSR has concise notation and a precise semantics that will facilitate the translation of real-time tests into a software test language for software validation purposes. The major benefit of our approach is that it can be used to validate a design specification which has too many states for exhaustive state space exploration based analysis. As an illustration of this benefit, we describe the case study of using the automatic derivation of tests from timing specifications for the analysis of the Philips Audio Control Protocol