Kactus2: Environment for Embedded Product Development Using IP-XACT and MCAPI

Key challenge for embedded system companies is management of product configurations over lifecycle. Either new functionality is implemented on an old platform, legacy code on a new one, or both at the same time. We propose Kactus2, a product integration environment suitable for small and mid-size enterprises (SME) utilizing FPGAs. We combine IP-XACT for HW integration and Multicore Association Communications API (MCAPI) for SW integration. The programmer has a uniform view of the system as MCAPI nodes regardless of their implementation in SW or HW. Kactus2 is a work-in-progress open source project implemented in C++ and QT 4.7 currently containing over 40k lines of code and gSOAP as TGI IP-XACT interface.