Integrating SysML and OWL
Henson Graves · 2009
Abstract. To use OWL2 for modeling a system design one must be able to construct a Knowledge Base (KB) that can represent detailed information such as the number of occurrences of a part and interconnections between parts. SysML Block Diagrams (BD) have sufficient expressiveness to represent detailed designs. Suitably restricted SysML block diagrams can be translated into OWL2 to achieve the same result. A SysML graphical syntax can be used for the KBs which are characterized as designs. Block Diagrams have a natural model-theoretic semantic and this semantics is preserved by the translation into OWL2 for a restricted class of Block Diagrams. An implementation of a design is a parts description of the system being modeled. For a design, a KB-model will contain an implementation of the system, but may contain other entities. When additional constraints satisfied by a KB that represents a design then the KB serves as a template for the design implementations. Design KBs can be developed in engineering design tools and exported to OWL tools for analysis. This work yields a partial unification of SysML and OWL that is sufficient for modeling the structure of complex systems.