A Toolchain for UML-based Modeling and Simulation of Networked Embedded Systems Emad Ebeid, Franco Fummi, Davide Quaglia Dep. of Computer Science — University of Verona, Italy Emails: [emad.ebeid—franco.fummi—davide.quaglia]@univr.it Abstract—We present a toolchain to model and automat- ically generate executable simulation code for networked embedded systems applications. First, we provide a UML extension for modeling the network in distributed embedded systems. Second, we present a toolchain to automatically translate the UML model into an intermediate description and then to SystemC executable code. Finally, the developed simulation framework is based on the state-of-the-art network simulator named SCNSL which also provides a comprehensive library of well-tested simulation models for communication networks. The framework is explained on two different case studies related to wired/wireless network applications, one for home automation and the other for agriculture applications. Keywords-UML, SystemC, Embedded systems, Network modeling, Simulation I. I NTRODUCTION Networked Embedded Systems (NESs) [1] are a group of embedded systems which are connected together using network interfaces, standardized protocols and channels. Nowadays, NESs are a pervasive technology due to the wide range of applications from home automation, to safety critical fields. Their increasing complexity requires design- ers to raise the level of abstraction. The level of abstraction should not only focuses on the modeling of individual design components but also on the interaction among them since typical failures in networked embedded systems do not arise during the test of individual components. Modeling languages like UML [2] is considered as a very abstract modeling language and widely accepted in the software engineering community as a common nota- tional framework but it lacks verification. Therefore, model verification at the higher level of abstraction becomes a mandatory issue to be solved. One solution to verify the model is by simulation since simulation. In literature, there are a few works which derive network simulation models from UML description. De Miguel et al. [3] introduce UML extensions for the representation of temporal requirements and resource usage for real-time systems. Their tools generates a simulation model for OP- NET simulator [4]. Hennig et al. [5] describe a UML-based simulation framework for early performance assessment of software/hardware systems described as UML Deployment and Sequence diagrams. Their simulator is based on the discrete event simulation package OMNet++ [6]. Deployment diagrams Network Profile UML2 HIF Intermediated descrption (HIF) N2S SystemC Network Simulator (SCNSL) + + Task library Performance Analysis Figure 1: Proposed framework to model and simulate networked embedded systems Regarding to the generation of hardware simulation mod- els from UML description. Thiagarajan et al. [14] present a system level description mechanism to generate SystemC models from UML annotations. The proposed framework translates specific UML diagrams into SystemC code for System on Chip (SoC) applications. UML 2.0 profile for SystemC provides a graphical entry to SystemC designers, with a special attention to the code generation and back annotation capabilities. Andersson et al. [8] compare UML and SystemC by focusing on communication modeling and also they present mapping rules for automatic SystemC code generation from UML component diagrams. The main contribution of this work is to provide a framework for modeling and simulating packet-based networks for networked embedded systems applications, where both the structural part of the network and the behavioral part of 2013 UKSim 15th International Conference on Computer Modelling and Simulation 978-0-7695-4994-1/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE DOI 10.1109/UKSim.2013.141 374