Towards Systematic and Precise Compilation of Domain-Specific Modelling Languages

Software is pervasive and often critical in our everyday life. Its production is complicated and expensive, especially for complex systems like Cyber-Physical Systems. These systems are often safety-critical and rely on heterogeneous processors (e.g., CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, DSPs), hence their engineering requires reliable and flexible methods. Domain-Specific Modelling Languages and model-based techniques have proven to be very suitable for that. Currently, from these modelling languages, executables are generated by first translating a model to a program in a high-level programming language (e.g., C++) via code generators and then compiling it. Code generators are language-specific, inflexible, and not always reliable, difficult and expensive to certify, customise, and maintain. In this paper, we outline ORPHEUS, a novel approach for model compilation based on state-of-the-art methods and tools. This kind of approach aims at maximising the profit of using model-based techniques, thus producing high-quality and safe software in a more efficient manner, and accelerating research by providing a unified common ground for researchers and practitioners.