Semantically valid integration of development processes and toolchains

As an indispensable component of today’s world economy and an increasing success factor in production and other processes, as well as products, software needs to handle a growing number of specific requirements and influencing factors that are driven by globalization. Two common success factors in the domain of Software Systems Engineering are standardized software development processes and process-supported toolchains. Development processes should be formally integrated with toolchains. The sequence and the results of toolchains must also be validated with the specifications of the development process on several levels. The outcome of a conceptual deductive analysis is that there is neither a formal general mapping nor a generally accepted validation mechanism for the challenges that such an integrated concept faces. To close this research gap, this paper focuses on the core issue of the integration of development processes and toolchains in order to create benefits for modeling and automatization in the domain of systems engineering. Therefore, it describes a self-developed integration approach related to the recently introduced prototypical technical implementation TOPWATER. A unified metamodel specifies how processes and toolchains are linked by a general mapping mechanism that considers test options for the structural, content, and semantic levels

APPLICATIONS OF GRAPH THEORY FOR REUSE OF MODEL BASED SYSTEMS ENGINEERING DESIGN DATA

This dissertation contributes to systems engineering (SE) by introducing and demonstrating a novel graph-based design repository (GBDR) tool. GBDR enables engineers to leverage system design information from a heterogenous set of system models created using multiple model based systems engineering (MBSE) software tools as an integrated body of knowledge. Specifically, the research provides a set of approaches that allow the use of system models described in Systems Modeling Language and Lifecycle Modeling Language as an integrated body of design information. The coalesced body of system design information serves to support concept ideation and analysis within SE. The research accomplishes this by using a graph database to store system model information imported from digital artifacts created by MBSE tools and applying principles from graph theory and semantic web technologies to identify likely connections and equivalent concepts across system models, modeling languages, and metamodels. The research demonstrates that the presented tool can import, store, synthesize, search, display, distribute, and export information from multiple MBSE tools. As a practical demonstration, feasible subsystem design alternatives for a small unmanned aircraft system government reference architecture are identified from within a set of existing system models.OSD CAPECivilian, Office of the Secretary of DefenseApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited