In consequence to the increasing complexity of technical software-systems the demand on highly productive methods and tools is increasing even in the field of safety-critical systems. In particular, object-oriented and model-based approaches to software-development provide excellent abilities to develop large and highly complex systems. Therefore, it can be expected that in the near future these methods will find application even in the safety-critical area.
The Unified Modeling Language Real-Time (UML-RT) is a software-development methods for technical systems, which is propagated by the Object Management Group (OMG). For the practical application of this method in the field of technical and safety-critical systems it has to provide certain technical qualities, e.g. applicability of temporal analyses. Furthermore, it needs to be integrated into the existing quality assurance process. An important aspect of the integration of UML-RT in an quality-oriented process model, e.g. the V-Model, represents the availability of sophisticated concepts and methods for systematic unit-testing.
Unit-testing is the first quality assurance phase after implementation to reveal faults and to approve the quality of each independently testable software component. During this phase the systematic execution of test-cases is the most important quality assurance task. Despite the fact, that today many sophisticated, commercial methods and tools for model-based software-development are available, no convincing solutions exist for systematic model-based unit-testing.
The use of executable models and automatic code generation are important concepts of model-based software development, which enable the constructive reduction of faults through automation of errorprone tasks. Consequently, these concepts should be transferred into the testing phases by a modelbased quality assurance approach. Therefore, a major requirement of a model-based unit-testing method is a high degree of automation. In the best case, this should result in fully automatic test-case generation.
Model checking already has been approved an efficient and flexible method for the automated generation of test-cases from specifications in the form of finite state-machines. The model checking approach has been developed for the verification of communication protocols and it was applied successfully to a wide range of problems in the field of technical software modelling. The application of model checking demands a formal, state-based representation of the system. Therefore, the use of model checking for the generation of test-cases is a beneficial approach to improve the quality in a model-based software development with executable, state-based models.
Although, in its current state the specification of UML-RT provides only little information on the semantics of the formalism that has to be used to specify a component´s behaviour, it can be assumed that it will be compatible to Real-Time Object-Oriented Modeling. Therefore, all presented methods and results in this dissertation are transferable to UML-RT.
For these reasons, this dissertations aims at the improvement of the analytical quality assurance in a model-based software development process. To achieve this goal, a new model-based approach to automated unit-testing on the basis of state-based behavioural models and CTL Model Checking is presented. The presented method for test-case generation can be automated to avoid faults due to error-prone human activities. Furthermore it can be integrated into the technical concepts of the Model Driven Architecture and ROOM, respectively UML-RT, and into a quality-oriented process model, like the V-Model.
downloadable thesis (German version, pdf format)
