A Modelling Framework to Design Executable Logical Architecture of Engineering Systems

Abstract

Modern production, logistic and assembly systems comprise of a considerable number of processes which operate by using diverse types of resources. Conceptual design of these systems has become more complicated because of the large scale and multi-disciplinary essence of their design knowledge. This paper proposes a modelling framework to support the conceptual design of such systems. The framework employs the principles of system engineering to fulfil the necessity of having a multi-disciplinary approach for the design of such systems. The framework realizes the essence of holistic design by modelling the structural and behavioral aspects of a system in one design artefact. Object Oriented (OO) method is employed to facilitate the complexity of holistic analysis and yielding proper logics for system architecting. This paper proposes incorporating the OO analyzing semantics into Finite State Machine formalism. Therefore, the logical architecture will be established in an FSM platform. In return, the resultant artefact can stand as an executable Meta-Architecture such that design alternatives are its instances. Moreover, the Meta-Architecture enables simulation of the alternatives which serve their early validation. Accordingly, this approach opens avenues regarding incorporation of the Meta-Architecture with computational and analyzing methods which can significantly support the decision making in the conceptual design stage.

A modelling framework to support integrated design of production systems at early design stages

“…The alternative generation algorithm generates alternatives by exploring the stored design-objects in the design knowledge database [53]. The algorithm uses an array of variables, which each represents a DR with a unique ID, see Eq.…”

“…'System-fuzzy-model': At the system level, certain processes can be more important due to their major impact on objectives' satisfaction. In the warehousing domain, the storing process is very critical and its design directly impacts the warehouse performance [53]. Thus, three input fuzzy sets are defined for 'system-fuzzy-model': 'Goodness' of processes (output of 'Process-fuzzy-model'), processes' importance, and objectives' importance.…”

From Automation System to Autonomous System: An Architecture Perspective

“…The development process of system architecture is presented in Figure 3. In summary, it can be found that the primary purpose of building an architecture for an autonomous system is essential, and essential especially for designing the overall structure and realizing the expected functions of the system, which, in turn, enhances the autonomous and task fulfillment abilities of the system [40]. For an autonomous system, four kinds of abilities, including environment perception and self-perception, planning, self-execution, and self-learning ability promising self-adaptation and self-evolution.…”

An executable framework for modeling and validating cooperative capability requirements in emergency response system

“…Generally speaking, after stakeholders propose their cooperative capability requirements, modelers will abstract the requirements and design models. Since stakeholders' requirements are usually textual descriptions expressed by human-readable nature languages, there will be several semantic or inconsistency gaps between the modeling language and the natural language [4]. During various modeling languages in the modeling domain at present, the unified modeling language (UML) [8], released by the Object Management Group (OMG), is considered as a popular and practical modeling standard in actual industry modeling practice [9], and especially is widely used to describe the architecture of some large and complex systems in the specific domain [10].…”