Call for Papers: Software Testing, Verification and Reliability

Special Issue - Testing of Embedded Safety-critical Systems

The Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability invites authors to submit papers for the Special Issue on Testing of Embedded Safety-critical Systems.

Guest Editors: Anneliese A. Andrews and Ina K. Schieferdecker

Background:

Today’s computing systems, that combine electronics, sensors, actuators, and software, and interact with other computing systems are used in many application domains, such as automotive systems (including trains), avionics (including space systems), medical devices and systems, industrial automation (including robots), urban security (including search and rescue robotics), and the like. Often these systems include autonomous nodes and intelligent agents. They may be safety-critical, security-critical or real-time. They can be realized on multi-core architectures, be interconnected with various bus systems or use mobile communication interfaces. They can be used in humid or extreme environments. They have to cope with limited resources for memory, power, and connectivity and optimize resource usage.

Challenges in testing these systems encompass issues like:

• How to represent requirements for embedded safety-critical systems and validate them by testing?
• How to reflect the hybrid nature of discrete control and continuous environmental behaviour in testing?
• How to assess correct or incorrect signal flows or trajectories?
• How to address the dynamics in system configuration, topologies and behaviours of embedded safety-critical systems during testing?
• How to cope with resource limitations (time, memory, etc.) of embedded safety-critical systems during testing?
• How to address the relation between security and safety aspects in testing?
• How to address different safety levels with appropriate testing methods?
• How to evaluate the efficiency of testing approaches for embedded safety-critical systems?
• How to assess the coverage of embedded safety-critical systems tests?
• How to design tests for embedded safety-critical systems?
• How to assess the quality of tests for embedded safety-critical systems?
• How to determine the residual error rate for embedded safety-critical systems?
• How to determine the failure detection power of test methods for embedded safety-critical systems?
• How to combine fuzz testing and model-based testing methods for embedded safety-critical systems?

Topics:

• This special issue focuses on all topics relevant to testing of embedded safety-critical systems. In particular, the topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• testing methods, tools, and technologies for embedded safety-critical systems
• test processes for embedded safety-critical systems including test planning, generation, execution, validation, and optimization
• empirical studies on testing of embedded safety-critical systems and quantitative assessment with metrics
• formal methods, industrial applications, and other related topics

Submission Information:

The deadline for submissions is 15th November 2011. Notification of decisions will be given by 28th February 2011.

All submissions must contain original unpublished work not being considered for publication elsewhere. Original extensions to conference papers are also encouraged unless prohibited by copyright. Submissions will be refereed according to standard procedures for Software Testing, Verification and Reliability. Information about the journal can be found at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/13635/home

Please submit your paper electronically using the Software Testing, Verification & Reliability manuscript submission site (select the special issue on" Testing of Embedded Safety-Critical Systems"): http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/stvr

For submission guidelines, please, see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1689/homepage/ForAuthors.html

The special issue editors:

Ina Schieferdecker: ina [dot] schieferdecker [at] fokus [dot] fraunhofer [dot] de

Anneliese A. Andrews: andrews [at] cs [dot] du [dot] edu