Distributed prototyping from validated specifications

TitleDistributed prototyping from validated specifications
Publication TypeJournal Articles
Year of Publication2004
AuthorsHansel D, Cleaveland R, Smolka SA
JournalJournal of Systems and Software
Volume70
Issue3
Pagination275 - 298
Date Published2004/03//
ISBN Number0164-1212
Abstract

We present vpl2cxx, a translator that automatically generates efficient, fully distributed C++ code from high-level system models specified in the mathematically well-founded VPL design language. As the Concurrency Workbench of the New Century (CWB-NC) verification tool includes a front-end for VPL, designers may use the full range of automatic verification and simulation checks provided by this tool on their VPL system designs before invoking the translator, thereby generating distributed prototypes from validated specifications. Besides being fully distributed, the code generated by vpl2cxx is highly readable and portable to a host of execution environments and real-time operating systems (RTOSes). This is achieved by encapsulating all generated code dealing with low-level interprocess communication issues in a library for synchronous communication, which in turn is built upon the adaptive communication environment (ACE) client-server network programming interface. Finally, example applications show that the performance of the generated code is very good, especially for prototyping purposes. We discuss two such examples, including the RETHER real-time Ethernet protocol for voice and video applications.

URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121203000748
DOI10.1016/S0164-1212(03)00074-8