Eduard Paul Enoiu, Senior Lecturer

E-mail:
eduard.paul.enoiu@mdh.se
Room:
U1-138
Phone:
021-101624
Phone (alt):
070-4484346
Division:
Division of Networked and Embedded Systems
Research groups:
Formal Modelling and Analysis of Embedded Systems
Software Testing Laboratory


ABOUT ME: I am a researcher and lecturer at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden, primarily affiliated with the Software Testing Laboratory and the Formal Modelling and Analysis groups at the Department of Networked and Embedded Systems. A native of Bucharest, I earned an Engineer's degree from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in 2009 and a PhD from Mälardalen University in 2016. 

My research interests span software engineering and empirical research, especially how to test, maintain, evolve and assure high-quality industrial software systems. I teach automated testing and model-based testing at the master and PhD levels as well as to industrial practitioners. Currently, I am doing research on a diverse array of topics in software development, including the ethical and human aspects of software testing, the role of automatic test generation (where tests are intelligently and algorithmically created) in industrial practice; the use of model checking for engineering better systems; the nature of creating efficient and effective tests; 

SUPERVISION: If you are interested in doing a bachelor, master or PhD thesis at Mälardalen University, and if you are a good and ambitious student interested in software engineering, embedded system development and software testing, then have a look at some general topics listed below (these topics are not taken by any student). If you are interested in any of these please email me.

I advise bachelor and master’s theses in all areas that I actively conduct research in:

  • Software Testing, with a particular focus on test design and benchmarking of tests.

  • Embedded Systems, particularly the development of industrial control and safety-critical software.

  • Model Checking and Model-Based Testing, particularly the use of models (e.g., timed automata) for building better systems.

  • Human aspects of Software Engineering, particularly cognitive aspects of software development.

  • Engineering Digital Systems and Circuits, especially using Verilog and other HDL architectures, and particularly how they relate to testing.

PODCAST: Listen to my podcast on software engineering called Testing Habits. These are conversations about software testing and software engineering. 

Human Aspects of Test Design

Software testing is a complex, intellectual activity-based (at least) on analysis, reasoning, decision making, abstraction and collaboration performed in a highly demanding environment. Naturally, it uses and allocates multiple cognitive resources in software testers. However, while a cognitive psychology perspective is increasingly used in the general software engineering literature, it has yet to find its place in software testing. To the best of our knowledge, no theory of software testers’ cognitive processes exists. We took the first steps towards such a theory by presenting a cognitive model of software testing based on how problem-solving is conceptualized in cognitive psychology.  The results support a problem solving-based model of test design for capturing testers’ cognitive processes that could help in improving test design practices and tools supporting these activities.

Automatic Test Generation

Since the early days of software testing, automatic test generation has been suggested as a way of allowing tests to be created at a lower cost. However, industrially useful and applicable tools for automatic test generation are still scarce. As a consequence, the evidence regarding the applicability or feasibility of automatic test generation in industrial practice is limited. This is especially problematic if we consider the use of automatic test generation for industrial safety-critical control systems, such as are found in power plants, airplanes, or trains.

Our results show that there are still challenges associated with the use of automatic test generation. In particular, we found that while automatically generated tests, based on code coverage or mutation, can exercise the logic of the software as well as tests written manually, and can do so in a fraction of the time, they do not show better fault detection compared to manually created tests. Our results highlight the need for improving the goals used by automatic test generation tools.

Combinatorial Testing

Combination test generation techniques are test generation methods where tests are created by combining the input values of the software based on a certain combinatorial strategy. Our results show that these techniques can be improved and be successfully used in industrial practice. We proposed the use of timed base-choice criterion for testing industrial control software.

The idea of using combinatorial testing in software testing practice stands as significant progress in the development of automatic test generation approaches. Combinatorial testing is capable of aiding an engineer in testing of industrial software. 

Model-Based Analysis and Verification

Design models that can be introduced earlier in the development process provide a holistic system description that captures the structure and functionality of a software system, as well as related extra-functional information, e.g., timing properties and resource annotations. I was the coauthor of several studies that proposed efficient verification techniques, like model-checking, that can be applied to high-level design artefacts to provide early information on the design and implementation of embedded software systems.

MSc theses supervised (or examined):
Thesis TitleStatus
Improved testing using real and simulated systems available
Software Engineering, Embedded System Development and Software Testing available
An Evaluation of Model-based Testing in Industrial Practice: From System Modelling to Test Generation in progress
Combining Runtime Verification and Automated Test Generation for PLC Embedded Software in progress
Measuring Combinatorial Coverage of Manual Testing in progress
Test Generation For Digital Circuits – A Mapping Study on VHDL, Verilog and SystemVerilog in progress
A Model-based Test Generation Tool for Industrial Function Block Diagrams finished
A Mutation Analysis Framework for Simulink Models finished
A Study on Timed Base Choice Criteria for Testing Embedded Software finished
An Empirical Exploration in the Study of Software-Related Fatal Failures finished
AN EVALUATION OF MODEL-BASED TESTING FOR AN INDUSTRIAL TRAIN CONTROL SOFTWARE finished
Automated Test Case Generation for Function Block Diagrams using Java Path Finder and Symbolic Execution finished
Automated Test Generation for Structured Text Language using UPPAAL Model Checker finished
Combinatorial Modelling and Testing of PLC Software using ACTS finished
EFFICIENT FBD TEST GENERATION THROUGH PROGRAM SLICING finished
Evaluation of Structural Testing Effectiveness in Industrial Model-driven Software Development finished
Model Test Coverage Measurements in an Industrial Setting finished
Model-based Testing on Generated C Code finished
Modeling Product Line Variability in the Rail Vehicle Domain finished
On the Complexity Measurement of Industrial Control Software finished
On the Use of Base Choice Strategy for Testing Industrial Control Software finished
Pairwise Testing for PLC Embedded Software finished
Testing of Industrial Control Software: A Systematic Mapping Study finished