Traceability in the Model-based Design of Cyber-Physical Systems

Design, development, and analysis of complex Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs) using models involves a collaboration of expertise from different engineering domains.Heterogeneous artefacts are generated, often using different lifecycle modeling languages and simulation tools.Capturing the traceability information among these artefacts can be used to support several activities such as requirements tracing, impact analysis of change requests, verification, validation, and documentation.However, creating trace links among these heterogeneous artefacts is challenging as different tools in the development lifecycle are usually disparate and there is no precise semantic in the terminology used between requirement engineers, verification engineers, and system modelers.In this paper, we present a linked data-based approach to capture traceability information and create trace links that relate heterogeneous artefacts in the model-based design process of CPSs through a standardized interface and format using OSLC.This enables artefacts from different tools to be connected and queried through a standardized interface and format.A practical prototype system for supporting traceability is designed through integration with the INTO-CPS toolchain of CPS design.The traceability data is stored in Neo4j graph database which can be queried for generating various reports such as impact analysis, variant handling, etc.