Multi-objective test case prioritization based on multi-population cooperative particle swarm optimization

Test case prioritization (TCP) technique is an efficient approach to improve regression testing activities. With the continuous improvement of industrial testing requirements, traditional single-objective TCP is limited greatly, and multi-objective test case prioritization (MOTCP) technique becomes one of the hot topics in the field of software testing in recent years. Considering the problems of traditional genetic algorithm (GA) and swarm intelligence algorithm in solving MOTCP problems, such as falling into local optimum quickly and weak stability of the algorithm, a MOTCP algorithm based on multi-population cooperative particle swarm optimization (MPPSO) was proposed in this paper. Empirical studies were conducted to study the influence of iteration times on the proposed MOTCP algorithm, and compare the performances of MOTCP based on single-population particle swarm optimization (PSO) and MOTCP based on non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm Ⅱ (NSGA-Ⅱ) with the MOTCP algorithm proposed in this paper. The results of experiments show that the TCP algorithm based on MPPSO has stronger global optimization ability, is not easy to fall into local optimum, and can solve the MOTCP problem better than TCP algorithm based on the single-population PSO and NSGA-Ⅱ.