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An Expert Survey on the Use of Informal Models in the Automotive Industry

Abstract​

Currently, the automotive industry shifts from classic Cyber-physical Systems~(CPSs) development to the development of CPSs with digital twins. However, while most digital twins assume formal/formalized models, in practice many engineers stated to employ informal models or sketches during the development of CPS with digital twins. Thus, to investigate the purpose and use of informal models in the automotive industry, we conducted an expert survey within the SofDCar project. In detail, we set up an online questionnaire asking participants from industry and academia about the way they employ informal models in their contexts. The survey indicates that informal models are widely used during the conception phase and for communication and documentation. Thus, we maintain that digital twin architectures for the automotive industry must incorporate informal models, as additional artifacts documenting and communicating design decisions.

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BibTeX​

@techreport{fuchss_expert_2023,
    author       = {Fuchß, Dominik and Kühn, Thomas and Wortmann, Andreas and Pfeiffer, Jérôme and Koziolek, Anne},
    year         = {2023},
    title        = {An Expert Survey on the Use of Informal Models in the Automotive Industry},
    doi          = {10.5445/IR/1000162389},
    institution  = {{Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)}},
    keywords     = {Informal Model, Survey, Automotive, Cyber-Physical System, Digital Twin},
    pagetotal    = {14},
    language     = {english}
}
info

This is a preprint of the paper submitted and accepted at ECSA - TwinArch 2023: The 2nd International Workshop on Digital Twin Architecture. For this track, there will be no formal proceedings. An extended version might be published in the Postproceedings by Springer LNCS.