Spectrum-based fault localization in deployed embedded systems with driver interaction models

Abstract

Software faults are still a problem especially in deployed systems. We propose a new approach to monitor a deployed embedded system with another embedded system, which acts autonomously and isolated. The monitoring system generates reports containing probable fault locations, which can later be obtained without requiring expensive debugging hardware or continuous access to the monitored embedded system. For this, we assessed failure-detection oracles, transaction detectors and suspiciousness metrics and evaluated them in a practical combustion engine scenario. Especially, we propose a driver interaction model to capture correct interaction with periphery and use it as oracle. Our results show that for the repetitive behavior of an engine control unit, simple approaches perform best. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.