Virtual Platforms for Model-Based Design of Dependable Cyber-Physical System Software

In this article, we present a virtual platform driven methodology for model-based design of dependable SW targeting cyber-physical systems. Our methodology covers an eight levels spanning flow for smooth refinement of discrete/continuous application models towards the implementation of distributed SW stacks providing flexibility w.r.t. early integration of object/binary code. For this, we propose multiple virtual platform abstraction levels supporting SW synthesis from high level MoCs. By continuous interfacing with a model of the physical environment in-the-loop we enable to holistically consider mutual impacts of the SW and its environment. In order to assess and improve SW dependability we investigate the injection of faults and their effects into both the environment model and the SW under test. We present a mapping of the proposed methodology to a completely SystemC-based framework by employing several SystemC extensions, such as AMS/TDF, QEMU, and abstract models of RTOS, HAL and middleware. Finally, we present experimental results from an automotive case study: a fault- tolerant fuel injection control system for which we consider two fault injection use cases: (i) robustness/stress testing and (ii) mutation testing. Our results were derived by prototypic integration of our SystemC framework with a commercial Simulink- based tool chain for AUTOSAR-compliant SW development and deployment.