Open semantic meta-model as a cornerstone for the design and simulation of CPS-based factories

A key enabler towards the fourth industrial revolution is the ability to maintain the digital information all along the factory life cycle, despite changes in purpose and tools, allowing data to be enriched and used as needed for that specific phase (digital continuity). Indeed, a fundamental issue is the lack of common modelling languages, and rigorous semantics for describing interactions - physical and computational - across heterogeneous tools and systems, towards effective simulation. This chapter describes the definition of a semantic meta-model meant to describe the functional characteristics of a CPS, which are relevant from its design and simulation for its integration and coordination in an industrial production environment. Actually, digital continuity needs to be empowered by a standardized, open semantic meta-model capable of fully describing the properties and functional characteristics of the CPS simulation models, as a key element to empower multidisciplinary simulation tools. The hereby described metamodel is able to provide a cross-tool representation of the different specific simulation models defining both static information (3D models, kinematics chains, multi-body physics skeletons, etc.) and behavioural information (observable properties, inverse kinematics processors, motion-low computation functions, resource consumption logics, etc.).