Integration and Testing of Large Scale Diagnostic Systems

The design of the modern Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems in large-scale projects such as ITER is technically challenging. They often consist of dozens of various complex and distributed systems, which are developed by numerous independent organizations and companies. The integration of the sub-systems into a coherent system is critical for such projects. System testing at all stages of development and integration is a common method of ensuring the proper quality and adherence to the accepted standards. It is necessary that the tests cover all the requirements and functionality of the system and that they can be executed in a repeatable and error-proof way in order to maximize the gains obtained from the use of testing. This paper presents the strategies of testing and system integration illustrated with an example of ITER project. An approach to automated system testing is also proposed.