Design Ontology in a Case Study for Cosimulation in a Model-Based Systems Engineering Tool-Chain

Cosimulation is an important system-level verification approach aimed at integrating multidomain and multi-physics models during complex system development. Currently, the lack of integrating system development process with cosimulations leads to gaps between them, decreasing the effectiveness and efficiency of system development. Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) tool-chains have been proposed to facilitate the integration of complex system development and automated verification using a model-based approach. However, due to the lack of formal and structured specifications, development information sharing is difficult for supporting MBSE facilitating automated cosimulations. In order to formalize cosimulation in an MBSE tool-chain, a scenario-based ontology is developed in this paper, using formal web ontology language (OWL). Ontology refers to a specification expressing the cosimulation implementations as well as the development information represented in the models supporting the MBSE. It is illustrated by a case study of a cosimulation based on Simulink. Protocol and resource description framework (RDF) query language (SPARQL) and semantic query-enhanced web rule language queries are proposed for evaluating the ontology's completeness and logic for supporting cosimulations. The result demonstrates that the scenario-based ontology formalizes the information related to automated cosimulation development and configurations while using the proposed MBSE tool-chain.