Customizing SysML for Specific Domains

Publisher Summary This chapter describes how to customize SysML using profiles and model libraries. These types of customizations support a wide range of domains that systems modeling can be applied to. SysML is a general-purpose systems modeling language that is intended to support a wide range of domain-specific applications such as the modeling of automotive or aerospace systems. SysML has been designed to enable extensions that support these specialized domains. SysML also supports model libraries—collections of reusable model elements commonly used in a particular domain. Profiles and model libraries are themselves contained in models, but they typically are authored by language designers rather than the general system modeler. The term “user model” refers to a model authored by a system modeler to describe a system or systems. Model libraries provide constructs that can be re-used by a model, be they blocks specifying reusable components or value types defining valid units and quantity kinds for value properties. Profiles, on the other hand, provide constructs that extend the modeling language itself. For example, SysML is a profile of UML that extends basic constructs such as a UML class to create the concept of a SysML block. The chapter also addresses a number of advanced metamodeling concepts that are typically of interest to language designers and others who may be responsible for customizing the language to meet domain-specific needs.