Real-time system testing on-the-fly

Introduction. The goal of testing is to gain confidence in a physical computer based system by means of executing it. More than one third of typical project resources is spent on testing and still it remains ad-hoc, based on heuristics, and error-prone. Moreover, it is estimated that 99% of processors produced today are targeted for embedded applications. Real-time and embedded systems require a special attention to timing where the moment of input and output event appearance is as important as the event itself. Therefore a special attention must be paid to timing during testing. The goal of conformance testing is to check whether the behavior of the system under test (IUT) is correct (conforming) to that of its specification. We follow a model driven approach where a formal model (or specification) defines the required (real-time) observable behavior of the IUT, and from this we automatically derive and execute real-time test cases to determine whether the IUT is conforming.