A Configurable Framework for Satellite Software

Abstract

Model-driven development helps to formally describe a system’s design. The system description, also known as formal model, can be used to perform early verification and to generate source code. Using the same source for both is useful for safety-critical systems, because we make sure that the generated code bases on a verified model.Satellite software is such a safety critical system. Independent of the mission, satellite software has to provide some features that are common for all satellite projects, e.g. handling telecommands and collecting telemetry data. There already exist approaches of applying model-driven design for developing satellite software. However, most still require some manual configuration in the source code, which makes the formal model incomplete. Consequently, those properties are unavailable for model processing tools. Therefore, we present a framework for satellite software that incorporates all parameters into the formal model. Those apps are compiled together into nodes, which represent software executables running on computing nodes. Our generator creates source code with abstract classes implementing default behavior and provide virtual functions for the user to override. The user can fully concentrate on implementing the intended behavior, the generated code already accomplishes all configuration.