The Virtual Test Bed: Simulation Supporting Software Development Testing

Software development is a recursive process of development, testing, and revision; all of which take up time, money, and man power. For companies that have limited budgets and timelines for completion, simulation techniques can assist in software and hardware testing and verification. This paper focuses on the development of software using simulation and references the Riverscout case study as a means to show the effectiveness of using simulation during software development. The highest priority of successful testing is the need to replicate the behavior of the system within a virtual environment. This is accomplished through our SimArchitechture and comprehensive data collection and modeling techniques. Often times, testing hardware components that integrate through the software can be time consuming and deteriorate the hardware over time. In order to reduce time and cost, a simulation can be constructed to represent the hardware, where the simulation then becomes the test suite for the software being constructed. This paper shows how simulation aided the Riverscout project’s software development process by reducing cost, development time, and deterioration to hardware used in the project. Finally results and conclusions are presented along with how expanding the use of simulation can be effective in other projects using software.