Software Testing Coverage for Automotive Embedded Controllers

Testing of automotive real-time embedded systems software, the primary way software defects are detected, is only effective if it is comprehensive. Test coverage is a measure of the completeness of the test cases. If used properly, in conjunction with other software quality measures and good coding style, software test coverage can provide a reasonable quantitative indication of the sufficiency of a defined set of tests. Not using software test coverage metrics is like testing in the dark.

With over one hundred types of testing coverage measures, choosing the right one for a particular automotive real-time embedded controller application can be challenging. This paper reviews the commonly used test coverage measures in the automotive software industry and focuses on the most important coverage types for the automotive real-time embedded software testing.