Using Timed Base-Choice Coverage Criterion for Testing Industrial Control Software

The base-choice criterion was proposed as a suitable technique for testing software based on its nominal choice of input parameters. Test cases are created based on this strategy by varying the values of one input parameter at a time while keeping the values of the other parameters fixed on the base choice. However, this strategy might not be as effective when used on industrial control software for testing timed behavior. We propose to incorporate time as another parameter when generating and executing tests by defining the timed base-choice coverage criterion. We performed an empirical evaluation using 11 industrial programs written in the IEC 61131-3 programming language. We found that tests generated for timed base-choice criterion show better code coverage (7% improvement) and fault detection (27% improvement) in terms of mutation score than tests satisfying base-choice coverage criterion. The results demonstrate the feasibility of applying timed base-choice criterion for testing industrial control software.