Time-triggered architectures (TTAs) are strong candidate platforms for safety-critical real-time applications. A typical time-triggered architecture is constituted by one or more clusters. Each cluster consists of nodes communicating with one another via a time-triggered communication protocol. Designing applications to run on such a platform is a challenging task. We address this problem by constructing a UML-based design framework which exposes the essential features of the time-triggered platforms at the UML-level and allows applications to be developed at a more abstract level before full implementation. To support preliminary functional validation, we have constructed a translator by which SystemC code can be automatically generated from UML designs. Our framework enables fast prototyping of time-triggered applications and early design validation. It also supports key design principles of TTAs, such as temporal firewalls and composability.

We present a system level description mechanism based on UML-notations from which one can automatically extract SystemC code. Our modelling framework is based on a restricted set of UML diagram types and some standard extensions influenced by the communication infrastructure of SystemC. The system specifications are developed using the UML-compatible tool, Rhapsody (2004). We then translate the internal representation of the design generated by Rhapsody into SystemC code. The extensions we have implemented using the stereotype feature of the Rhapsody tool pull up the communication infrastructure and timing features of SystemC to the UML-level. Consequently, we can describe executable platforms at the UML-level as well as translate UML-based application descriptions to SystemC level.