Virtual Emulator Framework

Abstract

During the past several years, simulation has been established for testing process control system configuration. Because of the high manual effort for the development of simulation models, those usually focus on the functional area, whereas only the correctness of the central control logic, but not the configuration of the subsystems is tested. This contribution presents a method that extends the advantages of simulation by the possibility to use modern hardware emulation, as well. Thus, a framework is presented that integrates and automatically configures control system- and subsystem emulators in order to be able to perform comprehensive tests of automation systems.