A review of information flow diagrammatic models for product-service systems

A product-service system (PSS) is a combination of products and services to create value for both customers and manufacturers. Modelling a PSS based on function orientation offers a useful way to distinguish system inputs and outputs with regards to how data are consumed and information is used, i.e. information flow. This article presents a review of diagrammatic information flow tools, which are designed to describe a system through its functions. The origin, concept and applications of these tools are investigated, followed by an analysis of information flow modelling with regards to key PSS properties. A case study of selection laser melting technology implemented as PSS will then be used to show the application of information flow modelling for PSS design. A discussion based on the usefulness of the tools in modelling the key elements of PSS and possible future research directions are also presented

A computer architecture for intelligent machines

The Theory of Intelligent Machines proposes a hierarchical organization for the functions of an autonomous robot based on the Principle of Increasing Precision With Decreasing Intelligence. An analytic formulation of this theory using information-theoretic measures of uncertainty for each level of the intelligent machine has been developed in recent years. A computer architecture that implements the lower two levels of the intelligent machine is presented. The architecture supports an event-driven programming paradigm that is independent of the underlying computer architecture and operating system. Details of Execution Level controllers for motion and vision systems are addressed, as well as the Petri net transducer software used to implement Coordination Level functions. Extensions to UNIX and VxWorks operating systems which enable the development of a heterogeneous, distributed application are described. A case study illustrates how this computer architecture integrates real-time and higher-level control of manipulator and vision systems

Mapping RT-LOTOS specifications into Time Petri Nets

RT-LOTOS is a timed process algebra which enables compact and abstract specification of real-time systems. This paper proposes and illustrates a structural translation of RT-LOTOS terms into behaviorally equivalent (timed bisimilar) finite Time Petri nets. It is therefore possible to apply Time Petri nets verification techniques to the profit of RT-LOTOS. Our approach has been implemented in RTL2TPN, a prototype tool which takes as input an RT-LOTOS specification and outputs a TPN. The latter is verified using TINA, a TPN analyzer developed by LAAS-CNRS. The toolkit made of RTL2TPN and TINA has been positively benchmarked against previously developed RT-LOTOS verification tool

Reconciling a component and process view

In many cases we need to represent on the same abstraction level not only system components but also processes within the system, and if for both representation different frameworks are used, the system model becomes hard to read and to understand. We suggest a solution how to cover this gap and to reconcile component and process views on system representation: a formal framework that gives the advantage of solving design problems for large-scale component systems.Comment: Preprint, 7th International Workshop on Modeling in Software Engineering (MiSE) at ICSE 201

Generic Pipelined Processor Modeling and High Performance Cycle-Accurate Simulator Generation

Detailed modeling of processors and high performance cycle-accurate simulators are essential for today's hardware and software design. These problems are challenging enough by themselves and have seen many previous research efforts. Addressing both simultaneously is even more challenging, with many existing approaches focusing on one over another. In this paper, we propose the Reduced Colored Petri Net (RCPN) model that has two advantages: first, it offers a very simple and intuitive way of modeling pipelined processors; second, it can generate high performance cycle-accurate simulators. RCPN benefits from all the useful features of Colored Petri Nets without suffering from their exponential growth in complexity. RCPN processor models are very intuitive since they are a mirror image of the processor pipeline block diagram. Furthermore, in our experiments on the generated cycle-accurate simulators for XScale and StrongArm processor models, we achieved an order of magnitude (~15 times) speedup over the popular SimpleScalar ARM simulator.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDAA (http://www.edaa.com/