A SystemC/Simulink Co-Simulation Framework for Continuous/Discrete-Events Simulation

The increasing complexity of continuous/discrete systems makes their simulation and validation a demanding task for the design of heterogeneous systems. The global validation of these systems requires new techniques offering high abstraction levels and simulation accuracy from a time point of view. The main challenge is the time synchronization and the accommodation of different concepts specific to continuous and discrete models. This paper proposes a co-simulation approach that relies on Simulink for the continuous simulation and SystemC for the discrete simulation. It is based on more than one synchronization model. The synchronization and the communication are assured by co-simulation interfaces. The article also introduces the CODIS tool for the automatic generation of co-simulation instances composed of models and co-simulation interfaces. Experimental results are presented for an illustrative discrete/continuous application