Synthesis of Embedded Software in Ptolemy II

Researchers:	Jeff Tsay
Advisor:	Edward A. Lee

Ptolemy II provides a software environment for the modular construction of component-based software systems. The emphasis is on modeling and simulation of embedded systems. This project extends that work towards design and synthesis of embedded software implementations.

The synchronous dataflow domain of Ptolemy II is excellent for representing certain kinds of embedded software, such as signal processing systems. But embedded signal processing usually imposes severe performance requirements on the embedded processor. Designers cannot afford the luxury of implementations based on more abstract computational platforms such as a Java virtual machine. Since Ptolemy II is entirely in Java, this means that Ptolemy II models cannot be directly used in such systems.

This project focuses on translating Ptolemy II specifications in the SDF domain into highly optimized C code that is suitable for compilation onto an embedded processor. The approach is first to refine existing techniques for translation of Java into C, and second to customize the translation process to take advantage of the particular structure of SDF models. This approach permits libraries of components that are written in Java to be used in the deployed embedded systems, after conversion to C. This exploits the component oriented view of Ptolemy II with efficient implementations of SDF models in embedded systems, while all programming and translations are done using high level programming languages.

Last updated 11/05/99