System Entity Structure and Model Base Framework in Model Based Engineering of Simulations for Technical Systems

Abstract

Model-based engineering is defined as the pragmatic utilization of model-based practices, namely, modeling, metamodeling and model transformations in various steps of engineering. In the last decade, the simulation of technical systems has leveraged graphical modeling and model-to-text transformations, but metamodeling and model transformation practices have not become widely accessible. Thereby, the benefits of employed model-driven approaches have been limited. System Entity Structures are directed labelled graphs that were proposed in the 1980s for specifying a family of system configurations for modular and hierarchical systems. The System Entity Structure and Model Base (SES/MB) framework combines the SES ontology with the classical workflow of modeling for an interactive or automatic generation of executable simulation models. After reviewing comparable approaches in software engineering, this paper discusses the application of SES/MB framework for metamodeling and model transformations for model-based engineering of simulations of technical systems.