Protecting know-how in cross-organisational functional mock-up by a service-oriented approach with trust centres

Abstract

In the digital product development of the automotive and aviation industries, the traditional digital mock-up (DMU) is about to be supplemented and superseded by the digital functional mock-up (DFMU). The DFMU extends the geometric integration of product models, as provided by traditional DMUs, with functional aspects. Thus, it allows investigating both physical and logic model properties. Additionally, DFMUs build the foundation for an integrated analysis of holistic behavioural aspects of a product. The design of DFMUs is validated by performing a cost-efficient co-simulation — a methodology for simulating individual components concurrently by different simulation tools which mutually exchange information in a collaborative manner. This process can be highly cross-organisational and thus requires an exchange of cost-sensitive and confidential product models between suppliers and OEMs. This paper discusses the deployment of service-oriented architectures in co-simulation environments for (a) improving the configuration process, (b) protecting the intellectual property of the model owners, and (c) introducing electronic signatures to simulation models, data and results. Furthermore, it presents the concept of a functional mock-up trust centre (FMTC) which implements part of these services. The FMTC is a practical and effective instrument to preserve intellectual property rights of model providers during co-simulation. This is achieved by encrypted storage facilities for product models and a safeguarded simulation environment.