Abstract
dc:description.abstractIn this thesis, we provide solutions to two different bio-inspired algorithms. The first is enhancing the performance of bio-inspired test generation for circuits described in RTL Verilog, specifically for branch coverage. We seek to improve upon an existing framework, BEACON, in terms of performance. BEACON is an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based test generation framework. Similar to other ACO frameworks, BEACON also has a good scope in improving performance using parallel computing. We try to exploit the available parallelism using both multi-core Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units(GPUs). Using our new multithreaded approach we can reduce test generation time by a factor of 25 — compared to the original implementation for a wide variety of circuits. We also provide a 2-dimensional factoring method for BEACON to improve available parallelism to yield some additional speedup. The second bio-inspired algorithm we address is for Deep Neural Networks. With the increasing prevalence of Neural Nets in artificial intelligence and mission-critical applications such as self-driving cars, questions arise about its reliability and robustness. We have developed a test-generation based technique and metric to evaluate the robustness of a Neural Nets outputs based on its sensitivity to its inputs. This is done by generating inputs which the neural nets find difficult to classify but at the same time is relatively apparent to human perception. We measure the degree of difficulty for generating such inputs to calculate our metric.
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- MS
- Level thesis:degree_level
- masters
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Computer Engineering
- Department dc:contributor.department
- Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Grantor dc:publisher
- Virginia Tech
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2018
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Varadarajan, Aravind Krishnan
- Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
-
- Hsiao, Michael S.
- Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
-
- Patterson, Cameron D.
- Zeng, Haibo
Subjects
dc:subject × 9Rights
dc:rights- Statement dc:rights
-
- In Copyright
- Licence dc:rights.uri
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Dc Identifier Other
- vt_gsexam:17195
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/97506