Tutorial Conceptual Simulation Modeling with onto Uml

Abstract

Conceptual modeling is of great importance not only to Information Systems and Software Engineering, but also to Simulation Engineering. It is concerned with identifying, analyzing and describing the essen- tial concepts and constraints of a real-world domain with the help of a (diagrammatic) modeling language that is based on a set of basic modeling concepts (forming a metamodel). In this tutorial, we introduce the ontologically well-founded conceptual modeling language Onto-UML and show how to use it for making conceptual simulation models as the basis of model-driven simulation engineering.

Two most important viewpoints:

information modeling, which is concerned with the state structure of the domain;
process modeling, which is concerned with the dynamics of the domain.

It is natural to apply the general methodology of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) also to sim- ulation engineering.
Unfortunately, the results obtained in the conceptual modeling field of IS&SE have largely been ignored in M&S. Still today, conceptual modeling is often confused with design modeling in M&S.
A conceptual model is a solution-independent description of a problem domain expressed in a well-defined (diagrammatic) modeling language.
In model-driven simulation engineering, we first make a conceptual system model, from which we derive a (platform-independent) simulation design model, which is then transformed into one or more (platform-specific) simulation models.
A conceptual modeling language is a representation of a meta-conceptualization of a viewpoint of the real world. A system conceptualization, which exists in the mind of the modeler and con- tains a number of system concepts, instantiates a meta-conceptualization. It is represented in the form of a conceptual system model expressed in the conceptual modeling language representing the meta-conceptualization.
We propose to use improved variants of UML Class Diagrams and BPMN, which are based on a foundational ontology, for conceptual information and process modeling

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