Suzanne M. Embury

h-index20
2papers
1,384citations

2 Papers

1.8SEDec 25, 2024
SAFLITE: Fuzzing Autonomous Systems via Large Language Models

Taohong Zhu, Adrians Skapars, Fardeen Mackenzie et al.

Fuzz testing effectively uncovers software vulnerabilities; however, it faces challenges with Autonomous Systems (AS) due to their vast search spaces and complex state spaces, which reflect the unpredictability and complexity of real-world environments. This paper presents a universal framework aimed at improving the efficiency of fuzz testing for AS. At its core is SaFliTe, a predictive component that evaluates whether a test case meets predefined safety criteria. By leveraging the large language model (LLM) with information about the test objective and the AS state, SaFliTe assesses the relevance of each test case. We evaluated SaFliTe by instantiating it with various LLMs, including GPT-3.5, Mistral-7B, and Llama2-7B, and integrating it into four fuzz testing tools: PGFuzz, DeepHyperion-UAV, CAMBA, and TUMB. These tools are designed specifically for testing autonomous drone control systems, such as ArduPilot, PX4, and PX4-Avoidance. The experimental results demonstrate that, compared to PGFuzz, SaFliTe increased the likelihood of selecting operations that triggered bug occurrences in each fuzzing iteration by an average of 93.1\%. Additionally, after integrating SaFliTe, the ability of DeepHyperion-UAV, CAMBA, and TUMB to generate test cases that caused system violations increased by 234.5\%, 33.3\%, and 17.8\%, respectively. The benchmark for this evaluation was sourced from a UAV Testing Competition.

2.8SEMar 15, 2019
A Methodology for Using GitLab for Software Engineering Learning Analytics

Julio César Cortés Ríos, Kamilla Kopec-Harding, Sukru Eraslan et al.

To bridge the digital skills gap, we need to train more people in Software Engineering techniques. This paper reports on a project exploring the way students solve tasks using collaborative development platforms and version control systems, such as GitLab, to find patterns and evaluation metrics that can be used to improve the course content and reflect on the most common issues the students are facing. In this paper, we explore Learning Analytics approaches that can be used with GitLab and similar tools, and discuss the challenges raised when applying those approaches in Software Engineering Education, with the objective of building a pipeline that supports the full Learning Analytics cycle, from data extraction to data analysis. We focus in particular on the data anonymisation step of the proposed pipeline to explore the available alternatives to satisfy the data protection requirements when handling personal information in academic environments for research purposes.