Citation
Christopher Brooks, Thomas Huining Feng, Edward A. Lee, Reinhard von Hanxleden. "Multimodeling: A Preliminary Case Study". Technical report, EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, UCB/EECS-2008-7, January, 2008.

Abstract
We take a pre-existing Statecharts model of a simple traffic light controller and reimplement it in Ptolemy II. This exercise reveals that Statecharts can be usefully onceptualized as a hierarchical combination of two distinct models of computation (MoCs), finite state machines (FSMs) and synchronous/reactive (SR). Once conceptualized this way, we can add additional MoCs to the mix. We illustrate this by adding a discrete-event (DE) model of the environment in which the traffic light operates. We then construct a second model of a deployment of the system on two microcontrollers communicating wirelessly, showing that we can effectively leverage both DE and an extension in Ptolemy II that supports modeling of wireless communication networks. This exercise reveals that even though the original model was intended to be a purely functional model, it in fact imposes constraints on the implementation. The model had to be refactored to get a distributed deployment model. Finally, we show that the portions of the models defining the control logic of the lights can be shared between the functional and deployment models using actor-oriented classes. This eases maintenance of the models.

Electronic downloads

• http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2008/EECS-2008-7.pdf

• HTML

  Christopher Brooks, Thomas Huining Feng, Edward A. Lee,
  Reinhard von Hanxleden. <a
  href="http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/383.html"
  ><i>Multimodeling: A Preliminary Case
  Study</i></a>, Technical report,  EECS
  Department, University of California, Berkeley,
  UCB/EECS-2008-7, January, 2008.

• Plain text

  Christopher Brooks, Thomas Huining Feng, Edward A. Lee,
  Reinhard von Hanxleden. "Multimodeling: A Preliminary
  Case Study". Technical report,  EECS Department,
  University of California, Berkeley, UCB/EECS-2008-7,
  January, 2008.

• BibTeX

  @techreport{BrooksFengLeevonHanxleden08_MultimodelingPreliminaryCaseStudy,
      author = {Christopher Brooks and Thomas Huining Feng and
                Edward A. Lee and Reinhard von Hanxleden},
      title = {Multimodeling: A Preliminary Case Study},
      institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
      number = {UCB/EECS-2008-7},
      month = {January},
      year = {2008},
      abstract = {We take a pre-existing Statecharts model of a
                simple traffic light controller and reimplement it
                in Ptolemy II. This exercise reveals that
                Statecharts can be usefully onceptualized as a
                hierarchical combination of two distinct models of
                computation (MoCs), finite state machines (FSMs)
                and synchronous/reactive (SR). Once conceptualized
                this way, we can add additional MoCs to the mix.
                We illustrate this by adding a discrete-event (DE)
                model of the environment in which the traffic
                light operates. We then construct a second model
                of a deployment of the system on two
                microcontrollers communicating wirelessly, showing
                that we can effectively leverage both DE and an
                extension in Ptolemy II that supports modeling of
                wireless communication networks. This exercise
                reveals that even though the original model was
                intended to be a purely functional model, it in
                fact imposes constraints on the implementation.
                The model had to be refactored to get a
                distributed deployment model. Finally, we show
                that the portions of the models defining the
                control logic of the lights can be shared between
                the functional and deployment models using
                actor-oriented classes. This eases maintenance of
                the models.},
      URL = {http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/383.html}
  }
  

Posted by Christopher Brooks on 18 Jan 2008.
Groups: naomi
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