A method (500, 600, 700) for emulating a physical hardware system in a virtual machine, the method comprising: constructing, using a virtualization system, the virtual machine from the physical hardware system by using information of the physical hardware system including hardware registers, interrupt functionality, delayed responses and external virtual machine connectivity; emulating, using the virtualization system, hardware components (225, 231, 233, 235, 237, 245, 249) of the physical hardware system in the virtual machine by emulating, in the virtual machine, interrupt behaviors of the hardware components including behaviors of delayed responses of hardware components; emulating, by the virtualization system, operation of the physical hardware system using the virtual machine based on a memory map that is determined based on a configuration of a memory of the physical hardware system and that reproduces memory locations used by the physical hardware system to exchange information between hardware components; storing information of the emulated hardware components in the memory locations of the virtual machine based on the memory map; and performing, using the virtualization system, testing of the physical hardware system via operation of the virtual machine, wherein constructing the virtual machine from the physical hardware system further comprises determining an interrupt design of the physical hardware system by identifying one or more of the emulated hardware components that use interrupts and determining interrupt connections between the one or more hardware components and an interrupt controller of the physical hardware system; and emulating the hardware components of the physical hardware system comprises emulating, in the virtual machine, behaviors of the hardware components in response to memory accesses. constructing, using a virtualization system, the virtual machine from the physical hardware system by using information of the physical hardware system including hardware registers, interrupt functionality, delayed responses and external virtual machine connectivity; emulating, using the virtualization system, hardware components (225, 231, 233, 235, 237, 245, 249) of the physical hardware system in the virtual machine by emulating, in the virtual machine, interrupt behaviors of the hardware components including behaviors of delayed responses of hardware components; emulating, by the virtualization system, operation of the physical hardware system using the virtual machine based on a memory map that is determined based on a configuration of a memory of the physical hardware system and that reproduces memory locations used by the physical hardware system to exchange information between hardware components; storing information of the emulated hardware components in the memory locations of the virtual machine based on the memory map; and performing, using the virtualization system, testing of the physical hardware system via operation of the virtual machine, wherein constructing the virtual machine from the physical hardware system further comprises determining an interrupt design of the physical hardware system by identifying one or more of the emulated hardware components that use interrupts and determining interrupt connections between the one or more hardware components and an interrupt controller of the physical hardware system; and emulating the hardware components of the physical hardware system comprises emulating, in the virtual machine, behaviors of the hardware components in response to memory accesses.