Heterogeneous simulation based on standards: deepening interoperability in trade-off analysis approach for aeronautical application

The design process of aerospace systems always dealt with multiple factors belonging to different disciplines, being often characterized by conflicting demands as functionality, performance, cost and safety. Actually the Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is applied to the design process of complex systems because of the capability of managing and tracing customers' and stakeholders' needs as well as constraints and technical requirements directly within the modelling activity. It allows to predict the system behaviour in several operating conditions, enabling the creation of a consistent model of system, which can be easily applied for verification purposes in all lifecycle phases. This estimation is usually performed by means of a number of tools that are often used separately to investigate specific issues of the analysis. The main drawback of collecting a large number of resultscoming from several sources is that as soon as the system specifications are written, very seldom they can be easily harmonized and included into a final list. This limit might increase the risk of having blank spots and lowers the advantages of the MBSE approach. Therefore a better way to face this problem is to enforce tool's integration, by overcoming some problems related to connection and interoperability. Pursuing the instantiation of a heterogeneous simulation, i.e. a simulation based on interoperability standards, being capable of enabling the communication among tools, is currently a key issue of the development of MBSE. To investigate the real potentiality of this approach and to show its consistency, this methodology was tested and applied within the frame of the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking project “CRitical sYSTem engineering AcceLeration” (CRYSTAL). The CRYSTAL project addresses the challenge of providing a generic method and tool framework for the engineering of complex systems, based on an industry wide accepted Interoperability Specification.This envisaged specification aims at defining an industry-wide accepted standard for connecting tools, based on linked-data principles and open Web technologies. To ensure wide acceptance, the Interoperability Standard will be defined mainly as collection and extension of existing ones such as OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) or FMI (Functional Mock-up Interface). A preliminary design of a de-icing system for a regional turboprop was developed as a Public Use Case of the CRYSTAL Aerospace domain by a working group composed by academic partners, aerospace industries and IT companies. Requirement analysis, functional modelling and physical modelling were performed for two alternative de-icing concepts. In parallel, activities have started to connect modelling, simulation and trade-off analysis tools via the CRYSTAL Interoperability Standard, to support the envisioned trade-off analysis and the related simulation process. Simulation and trade-off results for the public aerospace use case are herein presented, together with the proposed approach for heterogeneous simulation, trade-off analysis, and for extensions of the standards used for integration of tools, namely the FMI and OSLC.