Generating Distributed Code from Cola Models

Model driven development (MDD) is well established as a means of tackling the complexity involved in designing such distributed embedded systems. The complexity of the modeled system not only necessitates proper abstractions, but also calls for automation to take a model to an executable object, and later to a functional integrated system. An automated translation reduces errors, guarantees reproducible results, and thus improves overall quality. We focus on automation of the translation steps. Using COLA, we need not handle a multitude of heterogeneous models, but rather benefit from the consistent modeling formalism and start with a single, behavioral, model. It provides a clustering of application components which define the tasks that must be allocated to hardware nodes contained in the platform model. The obtained executables are tailored towards the specific platform and require no further manual intervention before effective installation (flashing) onto the target hardware system.