Methodology and Tools for Next Generation Cyber‐Physical Systems: The iCyPhy Approach

The realization of complex, cyber‐physical “systems of systems” can substantially benefit from model‐based hierarchical and compositional methodologies to make their design possible let alone optimal. In this paper, we introduce the methodology being developed within the industrial Cyber‐Physical (iCyPhy) research consortium, which addresses the complexity and heterogeneity of cyber‐physical systems by formalizing the design process in a hierarchical and compositional way, and provides a unifying framework where different modeling, analysis and synthesis tools can seamlessly interconnect. We use assume‐guarantee contracts and their algebra (e.g. composition, conjunction, refinement) to provide formal support to the entire design flow. The design is carried out as a sequence of refinement steps from a high‐level specification (top‐down phase) to an implementation built out of a library of components at the lower level (bottom‐up phase). At each step, the design is refined by combining synthesis from requirements, optimization and simulation‐based design space exploration methods. We illustrate our approach on design examples of embedded controllers for aircraft power distribution and air management systems.