The outstanding characteristic of control systems is the fact that they interact closely interlinked with a real world environment.

[2] The system works in an interactional cycle with its environment and is subject to temporal constraints.

Natural language texts become part of the graphics, supporting the simple and demonstrative readability even for non-programmers.

Substantial techniques such as parallel and hierarchical branching state machines, conditional branching, reactivity, signal description, measured signals as well as lists of simple test steps allow an intuitive and graphic modelling even of complex test cases.

The lowest level signal description consists of either test step lists or so called direct definitions.

TPT was developed specifically for testing of continuous and reactive behaviour of embedded systems.

[4] TPT can be seen as the extension of the Classification Tree Method in terms of timing behaviour.

The underlying idea of TPT's systematic is the separation of similarities and differences among the test cases: most test cases are very similar in their structural process and can "only" be differentiated in a few, but crucial details.

Examples are MATLAB/Simulink, TargetLink, ASCET, C-code, CAN, AUTOSAR, SystemDesk, DaVinci CT, LABCAR, INCA, Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) and HiL.

A configurable graphical user interface (Dashboard), based on GUI widgets, can be used to interact with tests.

TPT's Virtual Machine is able to process tests in real time with defined response behaviour.

The use of a script language ensures a high degree of flexibility in the test evaluation: access to reference data, communication with other tools and development of one's own domain-specific libraries for test evaluation is supported.

TPT offers an interface to requirements tools like Telelogic DOORS to support these activities.

TPT is used by many different other car manufacturers like BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and General Motors as well as suppliers like Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental and Hella.