Heterogeneous systems co-simulation: a model-driven approach based on SysML State Machines and Simulink

The increasing complexity of real-time systems makes their simulation and validation a demanding task. For most systems, the simulation has to take into account both continuous time and discrete events, and the challenge is to create a co-simulation environment that allows synchronization and interaction between the two worlds. This paper proposes a model-based code-in-the-loop co-simulation framework that relies on the OMG SysML (for discrete events and states modeling with State Machine Diagrams) as implemented in the Artisan Studio tool, and on the industry de-facto standard Matlab Simulink tool (for continuous time modeling and simulation). The main feature is the automatic generation of optimized code, allowing real-time simulation that may eventually run natively on a target for embedded systems. Additional features to enhance the simulation effectiveness, like remote graphical animation and control of the state diagrams evolution, are also supported.