The paper overviews a joint framework for validating and exploring complex embedded systems. The framework indeed combines AVATAR and SocLib. AVATAR is a Model Driven Engineering approach relying on SysML, and SoCLib is a virtual prototyping platform. The main contribution lies in the new possibility to map AVATAR SysML blocks onto hardware nodes, within a newly conceived Deployment Diagram, and then to transform the latter into SoCLib models. At the AVATAR level, diagrams can be formally verified and simulated in a functional way only, that is, without considering any underlying hardware execution environment. On the contrary, the SocLib models can be simulated taking into account hardware components in an explicit way with a cycle-accurate bit accurate approach. An automotive system is used to present the two abstraction levels, and their support by the TTool toolkit.