Interoperable meta model for simulation-in-the-loop

Abstract

In the context of industry 4.0, where factory components become more and more intelligent, the role of virtualization and simulation becomes central. This paper presents a flexible, modular, scalable, extensible and interoperable modelling language expressly designed to support multidisciplinary simulations. In particular, the language is based on a meta-model that provides patterns of both hierarchical and graphical aggregations and imposes a modelling process based on the principle of separation of concerns using a layered model. An example of applying the model to a business use case is also reported.

A Systematic Literature Review on Model-driven Engineering for Cyber-Physical Systems

“…Simulation was the second most reported MDE activity (40 studies, 16.81%). Apart from 1 study that developed a tool [142] and 2 studies that developed metamodels [35,93] for simulation purposes, the rest of the studies (37 studies) used existing simulation tools/languages. Therefore, one can observe that there is a research gap in developing domain-specific simulation tools/languages for CPS.…”

“…They can be summarized as follows: Only 1 study [142] developed a simulator. 2 studies developed meta-models [93,35], and 8 studies [15,60,64,92,95,144,102,123] used existing tools for modeling and simulation. Remaining 29 studies incorporating simulation addressed the other phases (i.e.…”

“…Results of this correlation are presented in Table 19. Applications included in these studies take into account Industry 4.0/Cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) [89,18,17,35,20,67,141,81], Industrial Applications [146,134,125], Automation Systems [23,157], evolvable production systems [30,29], and Assembly systems (ASs) [140].…”

“…OMiRob [146] Example robot packaging system [93], Pick and Place Unit [18], Vehicular Ad-hoc NETwork [157], pneumatic stopper unit [20], water treatment plant SWaT [125]. Use case end-to-end communication use case for an Industry 4.0 application [89], White-goods production [35] Critical Infrastructure…”