Structured Integration Test Suite Generation Process for Multi-Agent System
Abstract
Problem statement: In recent years, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies are proposed to develop complex distributed systems based upon the agent paradigm. The implementation for such systems has usually the form of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Testing of MAS is a challenging task because these systems are often programmed to be autonomous and deliberative and they operate in an open world, which requires context awareness. Approach: We introduce a novel approach for goal-oriented software integration testing. It specifies an integration testing process that complements the goal oriented methodology Tropos and strengthens the mutual relationship between goal analysis and testing. Results: The derived test suites from the system goals can be used to observe emergent properties resulting from agent interactions and make sure that a group of agents and contextual resources work correctly together. Conclusion: This approach defines a structured and comprehensive integration test suite derivation process for engineering software agents by providing a systematic way of deriving test cases from goal analysis.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2011.690.697
Copyright: © 2011 Zina Houhamdi and Belkacem Athamena. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- 3,566 Views
- 2,793 Downloads
- 5 Citations
Download
Keywords
- Multi-Agent Systems (MAS)
- integration testing
- test case generation
- deriving test
- Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE)
- Object-Oriented (OO)
- tropos methodology
- architectural design
- collaborative goals
- detailed design