Structural Generation of Virtual Prototypes for Smart Sensor Development in SystemC-AMS from Simulink Models

We present a flow to reuse system-level analog/mixed-signal (AMS) models developed in MATLAB/Simulink for the extension of virtual prototypes in SystemC. To prevent co-simulation, our flow translates the Simulink model into an equivalent SystemC-AMS model. Translation is supported either by wrapping code generated by MATLAB's Embedded Coder or by instantiating previously generated models. Thus, a one-to-one mapping of the model's hierarchy is possible which allows deep insights into the architecture and good traceability. The conducted case study on an accelerometer model shows the applicability of our approach. The generated hierarchical model is half as fast as a generated monolithic (black box) version but allows better observability and traceability of the system. It is tens of times faster than simulation in Simulink, thus especially faster than co-simulation. The extended virtual prototype aims to support software engineers during development and validation of firmware in smart sensors.