Translation of Simulink Models to Component-based Software Models

Model based development aims to facilitate the development of embedded control systems by emphasizing the separation of the design level from the implementation level. Model based design involves the use of multiple models that represent different views of a system, having different semantics of abstract system descriptions. Usually, in mechatronics systems, design proceeds by iterating model construction, model analysis, and model transformation. Constructing a MATLAB/Simulink model, a plant and controller behavior is simulated using graphical blocks to represent mathematical and logical constructs and process flow, then software code is generated. A Simulink model is a representation of the design or implementation of a physical system that satisfies a set of requirements. A software component-based system aims to organize system architecture and behaviour as a means of computation, communication and constraints, using computational blocks and aggregates for both discrete and continuous behaviour, different interconnection and execution disciplines for event-based and time-based controllers, and so on, to encompass the demands to more functionality, at even lower prices, and with opposite constraints. COMDES (Componentbased Design of Software for Distributed Embedded Systems) is such a component-based system framework developed by the software engineering group of Mads Clausen Institute for Product Innovation (MCI), University of Southern Denmark. The paper describes a safe translation of a restricted set of MATLAB/Simulink blocks to COMDES software components, both for continuous and discrete behaviour. The automated model transformation is the ultimate goal of metamodel-based design, leading to unified modelling techniques of heterogeneous models. Implications of the adopted modelling transformation approaches are discussed in the context of understanding of relationships between various models.