Component-based hardware/software co-simulation

Developing highly efficient and reliable embedded systems demands hardware/software (HW/SW) co-design and, therefore, co-simulation. In order to be highly configurable, embedded systems are increasingly component-based in both hardware and software. In this paper, we present a novel approach to hardware/software co-simulation of component-based embedded systems. Our approach features a component model which unifies hardware and software component models with the concept of bridge component. Bridge components raise the level of abstraction for designing HW/SW interfaces. Their specifications are used to configure the co-simulators. Our approach has been applied to co-simulation of sensor system instances included in the TinyOS distribution. The case studies have demonstrated that our approach is readily applicable to real-world embedded systems and reduces co-simulation complexities.