Testing embedded control systems with TTCN-3 - An overview on TTCN-3 continuous

TTCN-3 has gained increasing significance in recent years. Originally developed to fit the needs for testing software-based applications and systems in the telecommunication industry, TTCN-3 has shown its applicability to a wide range of other industrial domains in the mean time. TTCN-3 provides platform-independent, universal and powerful concepts to describe tests - especially for discrete, interactive systems - on different levels of abstraction. However, TTCN-3 addresses systems with discrete input and output characteristics only. In the automotive industry - as well as in other industries that deal with highly complex software-based control systems - this is not sufficient. Control systems often interact with their environment trough sensors and actuators using continuous signals. A test environment that adequately supports the specification, execution and evaluation of tests for embedded control systems has to provide concepts to handle this kind of signals. Moreover it has to support the test engineer with suitable abstractions that ease signal specification and signal evaluation.