Track 2 Session 1

9:20 to 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Software Reliability Testing – A Case Study for an Automotive Embedded Safety-Critical System

This case study presents an integrated process and best practices developed for automated software testing to increase test quality and coverage resulting in improved software reliability. The Electric Power Assisted Steering (EPAS) system is subjected to software testing intended to find bugs, defects and software failures. The software is tested without actual hardware; a simulator test environment approach is used. External hardware subsystems are simulated and interfaced to software via the simulator. Test vector generation and database management has been automated for testing and report generation. The objective of testing is to apply collected data to a suitable reliability model in order to demonstrate reliability growth and expected test duration to achieve a target MTBF.

Key Words: Software Reliability, Software Safety, Safety Critical System, Electric Power Assisted Steering, Test Cases, Simulation

Rani Mukherjee

Mahindra Satyam Computer Services Ltd.