Conception of a model-driven process for vehicle control development

Context

In the rail industry, customers want to be able to configure their vehicle themselves from a wide range of available features. At the same time, shorter development times are required. As a result, increasingly complex vehicles with a large number of variants and the resulting time pressure pose a challenge. With the help of model-based approaches, the mastery of complexity, traceability of requirements and their implementation and a better understanding of problems are to be achieved and the work process made more efficient.

The current model-based approach does not sufficiently solve the problem of complexity and efficiency, as although the model is used for support, it is not powerful enough to take over automatable tasks. The model-driven approach strengthens the use and information content of the model. The work is carried out in cooperation with the software service provider Codewerk GmbH, which aims to take existing concepts for the development of rail vehicles to the next level.

Goals

So far, only part of the engineering process has been covered by the model. The aim of this work is to analyze where further potentials exist with modeling and how these can be designed. This includes

• Determination and description of the current development process for vehicle control software in a subsystem using a practical example.
• Analyzing which aspects are currently not yet covered by the model and where there are breaks in the development process.
• Conception of a consistent development process for subsystems of a vehicle control system with a model-driven approach that closes the identified gaps.
• Definition of domain-specific languages to describe the contents of the respective development process steps in the model and subsequent software and documentation generation from the model.
• Evaluation through exemplary implementation of the model-driven process for a subsystem of the vehicle control system with corresponding modeling and software and documentation generation.

Requirements

• Basic knowledge of modeling (UML/SysML)
• Independent and solution-oriented way of working
• Analytical and structured thinking
• Knowledge in the field of rail vehicles is an advantage
• Business fluent in written and spoken German