A Review on Parameter Estimation Techniques of Software Reliability Growth Models

Software reliability is considered as a quantifiable metric, which is defined as the probability of a software to operate without failure for a specified period of time in a specific environment. Various software reliability growth models have been proposed to predict the reliability of a software. These models help vendors to predict the behaviour of the software before shipment. The reliability is predicted by estimating the parameters of the software reliability growth models. But the model parameters are generally in nonlinear relationships which creates many problems in finding the optimal parameters using traditional techniques like Maximum Likelihood and least Square Estimation. Various stochastic search algorithms have been introduced which have made the task of parameter estimation, more reliable and computationally easier. Parameter estimation of NHPP based reliability models, using MLE and using an evolutionary search algorithm called Particle Swarm Optimization, has been explored in the paper.