Model-based Software and Systems Engineering for Digital Twins
Bernhard Rumpe
RWTH Aachen
Modeling is an important technique in many engineering disciplines. Modern modeling languages and tools allow developers to early concentrate on key aspects of the product and thus frontload quality assurance e.g. through simulation. Equally important, explicit models of system requirements, technology independent function and architecture models, as well compact software and system component models enable reuse and variability management. Composition, tracing and refactoring assist evolutionary development and simulative quality assurance in a way that greatly reduces development cost for products of all kinds. Using explicit models in appropriate modeling languages, like SysML or even domain specific languages, and an integrated, highly automated tool chain for construction, analysis and simulation is key to integrate all forms of system components. A holistic development approach needs a clear decomposition and decoupling and thus also well defined integration techniques. Furthermore, models are a good basis for the construction of a digital twin, because a digital twin shares a lot of characteristics with a model. A digital twin is like a real twin: it is an active instance that interacts with the real system, allows to share real operative data, but also to simulate what the real twin would do and thus predict a systems behavior. We examine the current state and problems of modeling for cyberphysical systems. In particular, we discuss how to make use of models in large development projects, where a set of heterogeneous models of different languages needs is developed and needs to fit together. A model based development process (both with UML/SysML as well as a domain specific modeling language) heavily relies on modeling core parts individually and composing those through generators to early and repeatedly cut simulative and productive code as well as a digital twin infrastructure from these models.
Speaker bio: Bernhard Rumpe is heading the Software Engineering chair at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Earlier, he had positions at INRIA Rennes, Colorado State University, TU Braunschweig, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and TU Munich. He is Editor-In-Chief of the International Journal of Software and System Modeling (SoSyM), a member of the scientific advisory board of the “Effizienzstrategie 2050/2045” of the BMWI for the development of the “Nationaler Aktionsplan Energieeffizienz” (NAPE 2.0), as well as founder and co-founder of several start-ups. His main interests are rigorous and practical software and system development methods based on adequate modeling techniques. This includes agile development methods as well as model-engineering based on UML/SysML-like notations and domain specific languages. He also helps to apply modeling, e.g., to autonomous cars, human brain simulation, BIM energy management, juristical contract digitalization, production automation, cloud, and many more. He is author and editor of 34 books including “Agile Modeling with the UML” and “Engineering Modeling Languages: Turning Domain Knowledge into Tools”.