META-X Design Flow Tools

Abstract : The META language and tool flow has been developed to support model-based, component-centric development of complex cyber-physical systems. This report describes the basic concepts driving the approach, the language implementation, and the tools developed to implement the design flow. The overall process is described, showing how components are used in a successive refinement of design spaces to converge upon a set of feasible designs. The core concepts and semantic foundations of the language are described, along with an overview of the language. Design space exploration is presented as implemented in the DESERT tool. Composition of models to supported analysis tools is described, along with the concept of executable requirements in the form of test benches. Mechanisms to support multi-fidelity/multi-abstraction representation and analysis of system models are described, along with the tools implementing the balance between accuracy and cost of computations. Analysis of system dynamics using Modelica and Bond Graphs is described for lumped parameter analysis. Geometric analysis tools using automated analysis of CAD models are described, along with analysis using finite element methods. An overall execution infrastructure was developed to manage execution of computationally intensive analyses on parallel computers, along with visualization techniques. Verification methods are described. Finally, experiences using the tools in FANG and the user threads are described.