No abstract

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is an efficient approach to support product development in order to meet today's challenges. The MBSE approach includes methods and, above all, modelling approaches of the technical system with the aim of continuous use in development. The objective of this paper is to use the potential of the MBSE models and to show the added value of such models on the system level when used as a single source. With this objective, this paper presents a three-step approach to systematically identify and apply meaningful modelling approaches within MBSE, based on the needs during the development process. Furthermore, an FMEA example is included in this paper to elaborate the use of MBSE in the system failure analysis.

An early evaluation of a product along with the consideration of life phase specific actor(s) and environment(s) can help greatly to gain an understanding of the product's behaviour and interactions. Virtual Reality (VR) can help designers to examine later life situations of a product by means of use case scenarios. However, preparing a VR-scene is still a time-consuming and cumbersome task. A model based approach that uses behaviour models of SysML to describe a VR-scene can reduce the preparation efforts. Such an approach is helpful if it allows the reuse of already described VR-scenes or their contents. This paper talks about the reusability of SysML behaviour models that constitute a VR-scene. This reusability can only be achieved by the generic definition of model interfaces. Therefore, a new modelling approach is presented to facilitate the reuse of SysML behaviour models to form different use cases of a product in VR. This approach also talks about the interface definitions and the management of variants of SysML models. The presented approach is elaborated by an example model that contains variants and uses instances to build different use cases.

During the product development process, it is of great importance to consider the later life phase situations of a product. This includes the interaction of the product with its environment and the human actor(s) in its different life phases. Therefore, an early evaluation of a product and its later life phase interactions are of great value. Virtual Reality (VR) technology is seen as very important at this point, as it can help the designer to realize the later life phase situations of a product inside VR. However, the preparation of VR-scenes remains a difficult task, as it requires a great amount of time and effort. Furthermore, the current methods for the preparation of such scenes offer very limited reusability. This paper will focus on an existing method that uses Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to describe the VR-scene for a CAVE-type VR-system. This method will be further extended and an improvement to the existing modeling approach will be presented to achieve a faster simulation in VR and reusability of VR-scenes. Furthermore, a detailed comparison of the conventional and the new approach will be presented. The new approach enables a faster simulation that will be validated by comparing the execution speed of both approaches under the modeling approach section. The reusability perspective of the prepared VR-scene will also be discussed. A Head Mounted Display (HMD), in comparison with CAVE type VR-systems, offers a cost reduction in the use of VR technology. This paper will also provide the idea for achieving a simulation in HMD while using the same MBSE-approach used for CAVE type VR-systems. The flow of information for simulation in HMD and the idea of implementation will be presented in detail.

In addition to the known approaches for product development new or supplementary approaches have emerged. An important approach in this field is Systems Engineering (SE) and Model-Based Systems Engineering. Through these approaches, new procedures, level-focused description concepts and terms come into product development. However there are still some uncertainties as to how the known approaches of product development can be combined with the SE approaches. This paper aims to show how the known development approaches can be extended by and integrated with SE approaches.