Experimentable Digital Twins for a Modeling and Simulation-based Engineering Approach

Technical systems become more and more complex, causing system design and realization, as well as the effective management of engineering processes from different domains to increasingly challenging tasks. For this reason a continuous need for sophisticated cross-domain methodologies in order to handle complexity and to create reliable systems persists. This paper introduces a systematic approach for a methodology that connects the worlds from different engineering domains leading to a modeling and simulation-based engineering concept. Central aspect of this concept is the consequent application of modeling and simulation techniques at each stage of the development process to support both, the design and verification process. The paper further presents a realization approach for a simulation framework based on Experimentable Digital Twins and Virtual Testbeds. To get an impression of the application of the introduced concepts a first case study from a space project is presented at the end of this paper.