Multi-level modeling for verification and synthesis of complex systems in a multi-physics context.

Overview & Synopsis

In the era of highly integrated electronics systems, engineers face the challenge of designing and testing multi-faceted systems with single-domain tools. This is difficult and error-prone. These so called heterogeneous systems have their operation and specifications expressed by several formalisms, each one particular to specific domains or engineering fields (software, digital hardware, analog, etc.). Existing design tools are meant to deal with homogeneous designs using one formalism at a time. In the current state, industry is forced to battle with integration issues at every design step, i.e. specification, simulation, validation and deployment. Common divide-to-conquer approaches do not include cross-domain interface specification from the beginning of the project. This lack is often the cause of issues and rework while trying to connect parts of the system that were not designed with the same formalism. This thesis proposes an approach to deal with heterogeneity by embracing it from the beginning of the project using SysML as the unifying tool. Our proposal hinges on the assignment of well-defined semantics to SysML diagrams, together with semantic adaptation elements. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this concept, a toolchain is built and used to generate systems simulation executable code automatically from SysML specifications for different target languages using model driven engineering techniques.