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This chapter presents motivation for taking a collaborative multi-disciplinary approach to the model-based development of embedded systems. Starting from a consideration of the ubiquity of embedded systems in daily life it identifies challenges faced by industry in developing products in a timely manner, but to sufficient quality to merit the reliance of their users. Using a fictional story of product development, it presents the perspectives of both the control engineer and the software designer. We describe an approach—realised using the Crescendo tool—that promotes collaborative modelling and co-simulation, taking account of existing technology and current industry practice

Development of computerized embedded control systems is difficult because it brings together systems theory, electrical engineering and computer science. The engineering and analysis approaches advocated by these disciplines are fundamentally different which complicates reasoning about e.g. performance at the system level. We propose a light-weight approach that alleviates this problem to some extent. An existing formal semantic framework for discrete event models is extended to allow for consistent co-simulation of continuous time models from within this framework. It enables integrated models that can be checked by simulation in addition to the verification and validation techniques already offered by each discipline individually. The level of confidence in the design can now be raised in the very early stages of the system design life-cycle instead of postponing system-level design issues until the integration and test phase is reached. We demonstrate the extended semantic framework by co-simulation of VDM++ and bond-graph models on a case study, the level control of a water tank.