Generalized Test Tables: A Powerful and Intuitive Specification Language for Reactive Systems

@InProceedings{WeiglWiebeEA2017,
  author       = {Alexander Weigl and Franziska Wiebe and Mattias Ulbrich
                  and Sebastian Ulewicz and Suhyun Cha and Michael Kirsten
                  and Bernhard Beckert and Birgit Vogel-Heuser},
  title        = {Generalized Test Tables: A Powerful and Intuitive
                  Specification Language for Reactive Systems},
  booktitle    = {15th {IEEE} International Conference on Industrial
                  Informatics ({INDIN} 2017)},
  publisher    = {{IEEE}},
  year         = {2017},
  pages        = {875--882},
  abstract     = {With recent trends in manufacturing automation, such as Industry {4.0},
                  control software in automated production systems becomes more and more
                  complex and volatile,complicating and increasing importance of quality
                  assurance. Test tables are a widely used and generally accepted means
                  to intuitively specify test cases for automation software. However,
                  each table only specifies a single software trace, whereas the actual
                  software behavior may cover multiple similar traces not covered by the
                  table.
                  Within this work, we present a generalization concept for test tables
                  allowing for bounded and unbounded repetition of steps, “don't-care”
                  values, as well as calculations with earlier observed values. We provide
                  a verification mechanism for checking conformance of an {IEC 61131-3} PLC
                  software with a generalized test table, making use of a state-of-the-art
                  model checker. Our notation is inspired by widely-used paradigms found
                  in spreadsheet applications. By an empirical study with mechanical
                  engineering students, we show that the notation matches user expectations.
                  A real-world example extracted from an industrial automation plant
                  illustrates our approach.},
  month        = jul,
  venue        = {Emden, Germany},
  eventdate    = {2017-07-24/2017-07-26},
  doi          = {10.1109/INDIN.2017.8104887}
}