Approaching Coordination in Distributed Embedded Applications with the Peer Model DSL

Coordination in distributed embedded systems requires complex synchronization of many concurrent activities. This task becomes especially difficult when network and system failures have to be assumed. The Peer Model is a novel programming model for the design of coordination strategies among multiple nodes, aiming to bridge design and implementation. A major advantage is that designs based on the Peer Model are very flexible regarding changing requirements and policies. The motivating use case is an application in the railway domain where embedded nodes detect approaching trains and route this information over several forwarder nodes to the level crossing. In this paper, we present a Domain Specific Language for the Peer Model which allows to automatically generate a graphical documentation and source code for different embedded platforms. It lays the foundations for an embedded system software development tool chain. We prove the feasibility by implementing an event notification strategy for the level crossing use case.