Open Source Languages and Methods for Cyber-Physical System Development: Overview and Case Studies

Industrial cyber-physical system products interleave hardware, software, and communication components. System complexity is increasing simultaneously with increased demands on quality and shortened time-to-market. To effectively support the development of such systems, we present languages and tools for comprehensive integrated model-based development that cover major phases such as requirement analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. The model-based approach raises the level of abstraction and allows to perform virtual prototyping by simulating and optimizing system models before building physical products. Moreover, open standards and open source implementations enable model portability, tool reuse and a broader deployment. In this paper we present a general overview of the available solutions with focus on Modelica/OpenModelica, Bloqqi, and Acumen. The paper presents contributions to these languages and environments, including symbolic-numeric modeling, requirement verification, code generation, model debugging, design optimization, graphical modeling, and variant handling with traceability, as well a general discussion and conclusions.