Simulation testing of automata

Although many transducer testing techniques can establish whether a system Imp correctly implements a specification Spec, the notion of 'correctness' used in this context is often rather weak, in that it fails to distinguish correctly between behaviours that are related functionally, but distinct as processes. By appealing to the process-theoretic notion of (strong) simulation, we develop a theory of transducer, process and FSM testing capable of establishing whether Imp is a full simulation of Spec. We show, moreover, that our approach is consistent with top–down integration-testing approaches. Received June 2004 Revised February 2005 Accepted March 2005 by M. Harmann and R. M. Herons