SDL-to-C conversion for implementing embedded WLAN protocols

The Specification and Description Language (SDL) for implementing embedded digital signal processor (DSP) applications has been studied for developing a wireless local area network (WLAN) demonstrator. The main DSP application is the medium access control (MAC) protocol. The protocol has been implemented using SDL and is being ported into the DSP of the demonstrator platform. C source code is automatically generated from the formal SDL model and compiled to build an executable protocol application. For the SDL-to-C conversion, a commercial development tool has been utilised. The tool provides a special converter for smaller scale systems. The converter can be scaled and optimised according to the properties of the source SDL model. By careful manual optimisation, the protocol performance and size requirements are improved.