Method and System for Designing a Distributed Heterogeneous Computing and Control System

A computer-implemented method of designing a distributed heterogeneous computing and control system, including both an application and a hardware context and configuring the application in the hardware context, the method implemented by design software instructions executing in a computer node, associated with an interactive display, to establish an interactive environment utilizing computer processes comprising:

• providing, by the computer node, access in the interactive environment to a set of functional modules and a set of primitive modules, wherein any of the modules can be graphically selected by a user;
• receiving, by the computer node, in the interactive environment a selection of desired ones of the functional modules and the primitive modules and ordering them in a manner to characterize the distributed computing and control system as a schematic of a set of devices;
• parsing, by the computer node, the schematic to produce a set of sub-schematics, each sub-schematic corresponding to a distinct device in a set of devices in the distributed computing and control system;
• transmitting, by the computer node, the set of sub-schematics to the set of devices so as to characterize each of the devices in accordance with the schematic;
• and
• configuring, by the computer node, each device to execute the sub-schematic via a corresponding control program running inside the device.