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A software behavioral test determines whether software execution under given input conditions matches the requirements established for the software. A tool that can perform such tests on software subsystems has been developed. The tool evaluates real-time control software written for embedded controller applications and detects many software behavioral problems that previously were found only on the bench or in the prototype. The tool is PC/workstation-based, emulates operating system characteristics of typical embedded controllers, and employs a distributed architecture that supports global engineering.

The size and complexity of embedded software in automotive systems has been increasing rapidly. This makes the analysis of such systems difficult. For instance, in many analyses it is required to trace the dependences between variables in the software. E.g., in checking compliance to On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) standards one needs to ensure that only OBD compliant data-items are used (directly or indirectly) in an algorithm that is to be OBD compliant. Similarly, for safety analysis such as Design Failure Mode Effects Analysis (DFMEA), all the inputs to a safety critical system, all inputs to them, etc., have to be found, so that failure modes associated with these can be analysed. Currently such tracing of dependences is performed manually at great cost and effort. We describe the application of a technique (and tool) that automates the tracing of software dependence.