Dynamic Software Architecture for Distributed Embedded Control Systems

Dynamic Reconfigurability, Embedded Systems, Control Systems, Model-Driven Developement, Model Transformation, Model Execution, Workflow Petri Nets, Reference Petri Nets

This paper focuses on the field of dynamically reconfigurable distributed embedded control systems construction process and presents a substantial part of the methodology aimed at this application area which is based on formal models, namely some variants of Petri Nets. Initial system specification is represented by a set of Workflow Petri Nets transformed into decomposed multi-layered Reference Petri Nets model, that is used during the generation of interpretable target system components representation. The main objective of presented approach is the introduction of dynamic reconfigurability features into the target system implementation reflecting changes in system specification during its run-time. Reconfigurability is achieved by the system decomposition into smaller interpretable pieces of computation that are installed on and performed by the underlying infrastructure. Introduced approach brings several layers of reconfigurability through a set of specific translation rules applied in different layers and scenarios for pseudo-code generation and by the possibility of installing the resultant functional parts on system nodes using well-defined communication protocol. The heart of described architecture lies within the specification of hosting platform called Petri Nets Operating System (PNOS) that includes the Reference Petri Nets interpreter.