A framework for rapid application development of distributed embedded real-time systems

There is a strong need for a system design approach for distributed embedded real-time systems with accompanying tools that reduces development time and supports software reuse. In real-time systems, timing constraints should function as a driving force throughout the design process, instead of employing temporal constraints only at the starting and end point of the design process (i.e. within the specification and the validation of the implementation). We describe a platform-based design methodology aiming at safety-critical distributed real-time applications. This methodology incorporates the idea of the platform-independent and platform-specific models of OMG;s Model Driven Architecture. We present a framework that employs the MATLAB/Simulink tool suite for functional design activities at the application space. The framework offers blocksets for modeling the communication between nodes of a distributed time-triggered system, while taking the temporal behavior of communication and processing activities into account. Automatic code generation maps the platform-specific model onto the system platform. The platform space comprises a real-time Linux variant as the operating systems and the Time-Triggered Architecture as the network platform.