Pre-simulation symbolic analysis of synchronization issues between discrete event and timed data flow models of computation

The SystemC AMS extensions support heterogeneous modeling and make use of several Models of Computation (MoCs) that operate on different time scales in the Discrete Event (DE), Discrete Time (DT), and Continuous Time (CT) domains. The simulation of such heterogeneous models may raise synchronization problems that are hard to diagnose and to fix, especially when considering multi-rate data flow parts. In this paper, we show how to formally analyze the execution of Timed Data Flow (TDF) models including their interaction with the DE domain by converting the synchronization mechanics into a Coloured Petri Net (CPN) equivalent. The developed symbolic execution algorithm for the CPN allows to detect all DE-TDF synchronization issues before simulation and to propose appropriate sample delay settings for the TDF converter ports to make the system schedulable. The presented technique is validated with a case study including a vibration sensor model and its digital front end.