UML metamodel extensions for specifying functional requirements of mechatronic components in vehicles

Abstract

Increasing demands concerning safety, economic impact, fuel consumption and comfort result in a growing utilisation of mechatronic components and networking of up to now widely independent systems in vehicles. The development of networked electronic control units (ECU) as the most frequent mechatronic applications contains three core aspects: the development of the (control) functions itself, and their realisation in hardware and software as embedded systems. A co-ordinated, systematic and concurrent function, hardware and software development process including co-engineering and simulation environments requires a detailed specification in early development phases and a formalised description to improve the clearness of these specifications, decrease contradictions and increase information density. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) offers such a formalised description facility. A UML metamodel will be presented used for a mapping of automotive domain specific functional models onto UML models including constraints formalised by Object Constraint Language (OCL) expressions. The model also comprises the specification of functional interfaces together with a hierarchical decomposition of the system. The UML automotive domain models are basis for the system design and architecture and support aspects like re-use, exchangeability, scalability and distributed development. Particular importance is attached to the implementation of the UML model in a commercial tool together with a prototype checker of OCL expressions realised in Java.