A hybrid test prioritisation technique for combinatorial testing

Internet of things (IoT) systems comprise of multiple devices connected together, to perform an intelligent task in real time. Such systems have to be meticulously tested in order to avoid hazards situations. Combinatorial testing technique can effectively test such complex IoT systems with reduced effort as it generates fewer test cases with adequate coverage. Prioritisation of combinatorial tests deals with finding an ideal order of the test cases so that faults are detected early. Recent approaches to prioritisation problem are either coverage based or parameter-value weight based for two-way or three-way interaction strengths separately. In this paper, we present a hybrid prioritisation technique for combinatorial testing that combines both weight based and interaction coverage based approaches. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm, we have conducted initial synthetic experiments on various covering arrays, and measured the effectiveness with t-Rate of fault of detection metric. The results are promising in covering the combinations early. Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.