  The focus of this thesis is the study and construction of covering arrays,
relying on maximal period sequences and other tools from finite fields. A
covering array of strength $t$, denoted $\mathrm{CA}(N; t, k,v)$, is an
$N\times k$ array with entries from an alphabet $A$ of size $v$, with the
property that in the $N\times t$ subarray defined by any $t$ columns, each of
the $v^t$ vectors in $A^t$ appears at least once as a row. Covering arrays
generalize orthogonal arrays, which are classic combinatorial objects that have
been studied extensively. Constructing covering arrays with a small
row-to-column ratio is important in the design of statistical experiments,
however it is also a challenging mathematical problem.
  Linear feedback shift register (LFSR) sequences are sequences of elements
from a finite field that satisfy a linear recurrence relation. It is well-known
that these are periodic; LFSR sequences that attain the maximum possible period
are maximal (period) sequences, often abbreviated to m-sequences in the
literature. Arrays constructed from cyclic shifts of maximal sequences possess
strong combinatorial properties and have been previously used to construct
orthogonal and covering arrays (Moura et al., 2016), although only one of the
known constructions is for covering arrays that are not orthogonal arrays
(Raaphorst et al., 2014). In this thesis we present several new such
constructions.
  The cornerstone of our results is a study of the combinatorial properties of
arrays constructed from maximal sequences, where we make fundamental
connections with concepts from diverse areas of discrete mathematics, such as
orthogonal arrays, error-correcting codes, divisibility of polynomials and
structures of finite geometry.
  One aspect of our work involves [..]
