Digital Availability of Product Information for Collaborative Engineering of Spacecraft

Abstract

0000−0002−5855−2989] , Philipp M. Fischer 2[0000−0003−2918−5195] , Philipp M. Schäfer 1[0000−0003−3931−6670] , Kobkaew Opasjumruskit 1[0000−0002−9206−6896] , and Andreas Gerndt 2[0000−0002−0409−8573]Abstract. In this paper, we introduce a system to collect product information from manufacturers and make it available in tools that are used for concurrent design of spacecraft. The planning of a spacecraft needs experts from different disciplines, like propulsion, power, and thermal.Since these different disciplines rely on each other there is a high need for communication between them, which is often realized by a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) process and corresponding tools. We show by comparison that the product information provided by manufacturers often does not match the information needed by MBSE tools on a syntactic or semantic level. The information from manufacturers is also currently not available in machine-readable formats. Afterwards, we present a prototype of a system that makes product information from manufacturers directly available in MBSE tools, in a machine-readable way.

OnToCode: Template-based code-generation from ontologies

“…The source code for OnToCode has been archived on Zenodo with the linked DOI: Currently, spacecraft systems engineers have to rely on data collected from human readable data sheets and individual correspondence with the manufacturer. As part of a research project on the merits of automatic transfer of spacecraft part data ((Schäfer et al, 2018), (Peters, Fischer, Schäfer, Opasjumruskit, & Gerndt, 2019)) from suppliers to integrators, we develop an ontology ( ) that formally captures all spacecraft part concepts relevant during the design phase of a spacecraft. To use this formal specification as a basis for all models in the implementation of our software prototypes that form the basis of systems engineering support method's evaluation, we developed OnToCode that generates code in multiple languages from a single main model, our ontology.…”

Automatic Data Sheet Information Extraction for Supporting Model-Based Systems Engineering

“…We use DSAT to review ConTrOn's extracted information and to manually correct any mistake made by the system. Finally, the extracted data is made available to external components or modeling tools, such as MBSE tools via the Parts Database [15].…”

“…To close the gap between these scattered sources of information, in [15], we introduced the idea of a product data hub that enables up-to-date product information to be digitally exchanged between all stakeholders. However, there are heterogeneity issues in terms of data presentation and semantics.…”

ConTrOn: Continuously Trained Ontology based on Technical Data Sheets and Wikidata

“…In the development and assembly process of most engineering projects technical data sheets are a major source of information about the components an engineer might want to use. There is, especially in the space domain, no single source for data sheets, but engineers have to get them directly from the manufacturers or sometimes from shops and distributors, as mentioned by Peters et al [19]. Because of this, the selection of data sheets is mainly based on personal experience and preferences and it would broaden the area of possible components if this selection could be based on technical requirements as well.…”

“…We consider this a random sample from a population of unknown size, since there is no single source of satellite parts data sheets[19].…”