Abstracting Automotive System Models from Component-based Simulation with Multi Level Behaviour

Recent work in Model Based Reasoning has resulted in the development of automated tools to perform Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Sneak Circuit Analysis (SCA). These tools work at the component level for individual systems or subsystems. Analysis of multiple subsystems is becoming necessary because of the increase in system and subsystem interactions resulting from Electronic Control Unit networked system architectures. This paper considers the automated construction of black box system or subsystem models from envisionments produced by a mixture of qualitative electrical and finite state machine simulations. These models can then be used as part of a larger simulation to promote reuse of simulation results during the repetitive automated FMEA task and hence improve simulation efficiency when multiple systems are involved. The approach also has the potential to allow Sneak Circuit Analysis (Price, Snooke and Landry 1996; Price & Snooke 1999) to be extended to include systems with internal memory. It provides the basis of a useful visualisation tool for complex system behaviour.