Automated Validation of User Equipment Connection States

Abstract: Telecom today has become an essence of life. Everywhere we see people using their smart phones for calling, checking email or accessing internet. To handle all these kinds of services without any intrusion is a very challenging task. This study deals with software testing which helps to ensure the quality of service to the end user. Software testing is an essential part in the software development process. Software development for telecom domain might not look as safety critical as of an airplane or nuclear reactor but it is arguably more complex. The main focus of this study is to provide automation to the unit testing of different types of radio connections that can be assigned to the end user based on the requested service and capacity of the 3G network. This research is sponsored by Ericsson to improve the testing of User Equipment Radio Connection Handling system that controls multiple possible radio connection configurations. This research attempts to identify and test all possible transitions between radio connection states. This will improve the existing manual state testing system, where changes in connection states cause dramatic impacts on test fixtures. As a solution, an automatic test case executor is proposed that generates possible transitions, which are later executed and verified automatically.