Abstract
A covering arrayCA (N ; t, k, v) is an N × k array, in which in every N × t subarray, each of the vt possible t-tuples over v symbols occurs at least once. The parameter t is the strength of the array. Covering arrays have a wide range of applications for experimental screening designs, particularly for software interaction testing. A compact representation of certain covering arrays employs "permutation vectors" to encode vt × 1 subarrays of the covering array so that a covering perfect hash family whose entries correspond to permutation vectors yields a covering array. We introduce a method for effective search for covering arrays of this type using tabu search. Using this technique, improved covering arrays of strength 3, 4 and 5 have been found, as well as the first arrays of strength 6 and 7 found by computational search.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 69-80 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference |
Volume | 139 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2009 |
Keywords
- Covering array
- Heuristic search
- Orthogonal array
- Permutation vector
- Tabu search
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
- Applied Mathematics