Editorial to the theme section on model-based engineering of smart systems

The term ‘smart’ is widely applied to products and systems that are enabled by, and depend upon, computing and communication technology to analyse and respond to changing conditions in their environment. The category encompasses systems that range in scale from small devices to large-scale infrastructure, and in capability from those that undertake monitoring, control and optimisation to autonomous behaviour such as self-coordination with other systems in the environment, self-diagnosis and enhancement. As reliance comes to be placed on the performance of such smart systems, the role of disciplined, model-based design grows in significance. At the same time, advances in the technologies employed in such systems present challenges to modelling and analytic capabilities. Smart systems are typically cyber-physical in character, demanding multidisciplinary design incorporating heterogeneous models and diverse simulation and analysis tools. The quality of human interaction, and hence the need for well-founded human–machine interface design, is increasingly critical. Furthermore, uncertainty about the behaviour of devices, systems and users in the environment, also becomes significant. All three areas stretch the state of the art and practice in model-based systems engineering. The papers in this thematic section address some of these important and intriguing challenges. The section arises from