HILAC: A framework for hardware in the loop simulation and multi-platform automatic code generation of WSN applications

Hardware and software platforms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are almost as diverse as their application areas, with very limited standardization. Moreover, heterogeneous programming abstractions put high barrier in application development and there is hardly any support for application debugging, except for a few blinking LEDs. Similar problems have been solved in application domains that have similar cost constraints, such as automotive, by the use of model-based design. We address the lack of model-based design tools for the WSN domain by providing a framework (based on Simulink, Stateflow and Stateflow Coder) in which an application developer can model a WSN application by using Stateflow constructs and then use a single model to perform multi-platform Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation and platform-specific application code generation.