Testing Critical Software: A Case Study for an Aerospace Application

This paper reports an academic experience at the Brazilian Aeronautical Institute of Technology using automated software testing tools applied to a critical real time embedded systems. The work uses a Problem-Based Learning - PBL teaching methodology, a Rational Unified Process - RUP tailoring, and the IBM-Rational Quality Architect RealTime and the IBM-Rational Test RealTime tools. This academic experience has been originated on the needs and specifications of the Brazilian Aeronautics and Space Institute - IAE and the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research - INPE. The Case Study is based upon three ongoing realistic Software Projects, all of them using real time embedded software respectively named Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAV, Student Satellite - SSAT, and Ground Control Station - GCS. This experience has involved 15 senior computer engineering undergrads and 18 graduate students to develop, test, verify, and validate the system, in just 17 academic weeks, and four aggregation levels: Computer Software Units - CSU, Computer Software Components - CSC, Computer Software Configuration Items - CSCI in just one Computer Software System - CSS demanding software engineering state-of-the-art processes, and real time notations and tools. The major contribution of this paper is the proper utilization of available tools to perform automated testing, improving deliverable software quality, reliability and safety, and increasing the expertise of involved professionals, as well as reducing the necessary time to perform unit, integration and system testing.