Fundamentals of a Mereo-Operandi Theory to Support Transdisciplinary Modeling and Co-Design of Cyber-Physical Systems

Author(s):  
Imre Horváth ◽  
Shahab Pourtalebi

The main statement of this paper is that synergetic modeling and co-design of the hardware, software and cyberware parts of complex cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are yet not solved, even from the perspective of an underpinning transdisciplinary theory. CPSs contain functionally tightly connected analog and digital hardware, control, and application software, and knowledge, data, and media contents as cyberware. The lack of a unified theoretical framework and an all-inclusive system conceptualization methodology can be traced back to professional, methodological and cultural differences between the abovementioned domains of development. The objective of our research is to make a step towards a theoretical framework that can support transdisciplinary modeling of CPSs. Architectural and operational modeling have been identified as two principal and interrelated dimensions of system modeling, and a mereo-operandi theory (MOT) has been identified as target. Mereotopology has been considered as the basis of architectural modeling. Operational modeling has been based on parameterized representation of the underlying physical principles, the morphological characteristics, the operation elements, and the overall operation flows. A demonstrative case study is presented to evidence the practical feasibility and utility of the proposed MOT. Our follow up research will focus on using this as a conceptual framework and computational basis for specification of system manifestation features and on a computational implementation to support embedded customization.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
K. Sridhar Patnaik ◽  
Itu Snigdh

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) is an exciting emerging research area that has drawn the attention of many researchers. However, the difficulties of computing and physical paradigm introduce a lot of trials while developing CPS, such as incorporation of heterogeneous physical entities, system verification, security assurance, and so on. A common or unified architecture plays an important role in the process of CPS design. This article introduces the architectural modeling representation of CPS. The layers of models are integrated from high level to lower level to get the general Meta model. Architecture captures the essential attributes of a CPS. Despite the rapid growth in IoT and CPS a general principled modeling approach for the systematic development of these new engineering systems is still missing. System modeling is one of the important aspects of developing abstract models of a system wherein, each model represents a different view or perspective of that system. With Unified Modeling Language (UML), the graphical analogy of such complex systems can be successfully presented.


SIMULATION ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (9) ◽  
pp. 753-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyed-Hosein Attarzadeh-Niaki ◽  
Ingo Sander

The growing complexity of embedded and cyber-physical systems makes the design of all system components from scratch increasingly impractical. Consequently, already from early stages of a design flow, designers rely on prior experience, which comes in the form of legacy code or third-party intellectual property (IP) blocks. Current approaches partly address the co-simulation problem for specific scenarios in an ad hoc style. This work suggests a general method for co-simulation of heterogeneous IPs with a system modeling and simulation framework. The external IPs can be integrated as high-level models running in an external simulator or as software- and hardware-in-the-loop simulation with minimal effort. Examples of co-simulation scenarios for wrapping models with different semantics are presented together with their practical usage in two case studies. The presented method is also used to formulate a refinement-by-replacement workflow for IP-based system design.


Author(s):  
Imre Horváth ◽  
Sirasak Tepjit ◽  
Zoltán Rusák

Various system-engineering frameworks (SEFs) have been developed for composable systems, whose overall operation is the sum of the operations of their components. However, smart cyber-physical systems (S-CPSs) are compositional in nature. Their reasoning capability and system knowledge assume an ‘ampliative’ (inter)operation of all hardware, software, or cyberware components. The need for SEFs that support synthesis, modeling, analysis, simulation, verification, and validation of S-CPSs is recognized in the literature. The objective of this paper is a critically review the state of development of compositionality enabling frameworks. Both quantitative and qualitative literature studies were conducted in combination with critical system thinking. The reasoning model used in the qualitative analysis was derived based on the findings of the quantitative analysis. The major observations are: (i) the notion of compositionality is not studied extensively in the context of S-CPSs that do not obey the principle of reductionism, (ii) methodological support of implementation of compositional CPSs seems to be in its infancy, (iii) SEFs may play a crucial role in synthesis, modeling and implementation of S-CPSs, and (iv) SEFs for compositional system design may be realized using the principles of semantic knowledge fusion or meta-synthesis. Our follow up research targets a formal definition and computational implementation of a testable prototype of a specific SEF tool supporting compositional design of reasoning mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Okolie S.O. ◽  
Kuyoro S.O. ◽  
Ohwo O. B

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) will revolutionize how humans relate with the physical world around us. Many grand challenges await the economically vital domains of transportation, health-care, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, defence, aerospace and buildings. Exploration of these potentialities around space and time would create applications which would affect societal and economic benefit. This paper looks into the concept of emerging Cyber-Physical system, applications and security issues in sustaining development in various economic sectors; outlining a set of strategic Research and Development opportunities that should be accosted, so as to allow upgraded CPS to attain their potential and provide a wide range of societal advantages in the future.


Author(s):  
Curtis G. Northcutt

The recent proliferation of embedded cyber components in modern physical systems [1] has generated a variety of new security risks which threaten not only cyberspace, but our physical environment as well. Whereas earlier security threats resided primarily in cyberspace, the increasing marriage of digital technology with mechanical systems in cyber-physical systems (CPS), suggests the need for more advanced generalized CPS security measures. To address this problem, in this paper we consider the first step toward an improved security model: detecting the security attack. Using logical truth tables, we have developed a generalized algorithm for intrusion detection in CPS for systems which can be defined over discrete set of valued states. Additionally, a robustness algorithm is given which determines the level of security of a discrete-valued CPS against varying combinations of multiple signal alterations. These algorithms, when coupled with encryption keys which disallow multiple signal alteration, provide for a generalized security methodology for both cyber-security and cyber-physical systems.


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