Tool for Reliability Analysis of Embedded Systems Software

This paper presents one method for software reliability parameters calculation developed to achieve the quality measurements of assembly language based embedded systems programs. It describes developed JAVA application, which analyzes assembly program and calculates parameters of software reliability. Calculated parameters are: reliability of software blocks, total reliability and failure rate, which are used to get software mean time to failure prediction. The application uses assembly language source code for statistical analysis to obtain data required for calculation of reliability. The software developer could test the influence of changing some parameters of target embedded system such as microprocessor operating frequency, time of observation and number of repetitions of each loop and the code outside the loop. Described method is demonstrated on simple assembly program example. The results of analysis could be used to get the measure of software quality and to increase its reliability. This application is the base for next attempts and research in software engineering, modeling and testing tools.