Variant Modeling for Multi-perspective, Multi-fidelity Systems Simulation

Current methods of Model-Based Product Line Engineering (MBPLE) do not seamlessly extend to the management of variants of system simulation models. Both architectural exploration activities and product line verification and validation analyses could be streamlined by applying MBPLE to simulations. However, this new application requires careful consideration to mitigate new challenges associated with simulation variant management, such as consistency between architecture and simulation models, the addition of simulation context and model fidelity as new areas of variation, and management of both plant and controller models. This paper presents an in-depth literature review of previous work on variant management of simulation models, a discussion of the complexity of the problem, and a preliminary proposal for an approach of simulation model variant management in which SysML and variant modeling capabilities are used to define 150% black box representations of simulation models in order to automatically create full simulation models.