Optimum mixed level detecting arrays

Abstract

As a type of search design, a detecting array can be used to generate test suites to identify and detect faults caused by interactions of factors in a component-based system. Recently, the construction and optimality of detecting arrays have been investigated in depth in the case where all the factors are assumed to have the same number of levels. However, for real world applications, it is more desirable to use detecting arrays in which the various factors may have different numbers of levels. This paper gives a general criterion to measure the optimality of a mixed level detecting array in terms of its size. Based on this optimality criterion, the combinatorial characteristics of mixed level detecting arrays of optimum size are investigated. This enables us to construct optimum mixed level detecting arrays with a heuristic optimization algorithm and combinatorial methods. As a result, some existence results for optimum mixed level detecting arrays achieving a lower bound are provided for practical use.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AOS1228 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Constrained detecting arrays for fault localization in combinatorial testing

“…Specifically, the value of δ represents the maximum number of unreliable test cases that a DA can tolerate without causing incorrect fault localization. Other studies on DAs investigated mathematical properties of DAs, such as the bounds on array size or classes of optimal DAs and the conditions required for their existence [23][24][25].…”

Selecting the Best Wild Card Entries in a Covering Array

“…The use of CAs has been around for over 40 years in software and hardware testing applications, as well as data compression, when there is interest in considering interaction‐driven failures among factors (for example, see Shi et al ). For the case when λ = 1 and strength values of t = 2 or 3, for the simplicity of notation, we denote CA λ ( N ; t , k , v ) as CA( N ; t , k , v ), where a covering array CA( N ; t , k , v ) is said to have t ‐way coverage.…”