Applicability of an integrated model-based testing approach for RTES

The increasing complexity and wide applicability of Real-Time Embedded Systems (RTES) necessitates use of advanced and automated development and testing methodologies to meet time-to-market constraints, quality assurance and safety standards. In this context, the applicability of Model Driven Development (MDD) and Model-Based Testing (MBT) methodologies for RTES have been gaining attention in the recent decade. MBT approaches, in general, helps in automatically generating test cases using models extracted from software artifacts. However, currently none of the existing MBT approaches deal with generating test artifacts for executing and verifying these test cases in memory size constrained and code-size critical RTES. To address this, an integrated MBT approach for executing the test stimuli in the RTES (without dynamic source code instrumentation) is discussed in this paper. A prototype implementation is discussed followed by an experimental evaluation of this approach for an RTES example. Finally, this paper presents a perspective on the applicability of model-based approach for industrial RTES projects.