MDE approach to the co-synthesis of embedded systems using a MOF-based internal design representation

Abstract

This work presents a Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach to the generation of a MOF-based internal design representation for an embedded application described using UML class and sequence diagrams. Differently from other similar MDE-based approaches for embedded system design, which translate UML models to some specific internal format, our internal design representation, as a MOF-based metamodel, can take advantage of the concept of transformation between models to implement cosynthesis tools. Our internal design representation captures the specified system as a set of hierarchical modules, interconnected by ports, and processes, which communicate through send/receive operations using channels or through shared variables. The execution flow of the application is also captured by means of a control/data flow graph, which is used as input to a co-synthesis framework for embedded systems design. The paper describes the defined transformations between models and illustrates them with a case study to show the effectiveness of the approach.