A systematic approach to construct compositional behaviour models for network-structured safety-critical systems

This paper considers the problem of model-based testing of a class of safety-critical systems. These systems are built up from components that are connected a network-like structure. The number of possible structures is usually large. In particular, we consider the following issue: For many of these systems, each instance needs its own set of models for testing. On the other hand, the instances that should be tested will have to be chosen so that the reliability statements are generally applicable. Thus, they must be chosen by a domain expert. The approach in this paper addresses both of these points. The structure of the instance of system under test is described using a domain-specific language, so that a domain expert can easily describe a system instance for testing. At the same time, the components and composition operators are formalized. Using a structure description written in the DSL, corresponding test models can be automatically generated, allowing for automated testing by the domain expert. We show some evidence about the feasibility of our approach and about the effort required for modelling an example, supporting our belief that our approach improves both on the efficiency and the expressivity of current compositional test model construction techniques.