Extended Variability Modeling Using System Entity Structure Ontology Within Matlab/Simulink

Abstract

Software product-lines are designed to tackle the development of systems that are characterized by a high degree of variability. They define variation points where different solutions can be derived for different products. Such variability mechanisms can be defined at different levels of abstraction, ranging from requirements specification to source code implementation. Several efforts have been made regarding variability modeling on the system model level, which have been mostly inspired by approaches that have been developed by the software engineering community. Regarding the rising synergy between the systems engineering and modeling and simulation, this paper presents an approach for variability modeling based on the System Entity Structure (SES) ontology. Several system configurations are specified using an SES or a set of SES's on a metamodel level, while configurable models are implemented as basic models; these are organized in a Model Base (MB). Pruning is then utilized to specify a particular system variant. We propose some general extensions of the baseline SES approach with a focus on a new concept called SESFunctions. The extensions have been implemented within an SES toolbox for the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The proposed approach is exemplified using an engineering example in order to present its applicability.