Modeling Operational Scenarios for Simulation-based Validation of Technical Systems

Digital twins serve as comprehensive virtual replicas of real world objects and flourish in combination with modern simulation technology, resulting in a broad variety of simulation-based methods. A key aspect in the realization of digital twins is an object-oriented modeling approach, which is based upon a distinct differentiation between model structures and simulation functions, allowing both to be developed independently. Real world objects are encapsulated in structurally equivalent digital twins, enabling to model complex system-of-systems with the same semantic as their real world counterpart. Despite the great potential of digital twins, current realizations lack the capability to fuse digital twins with formalized description of their interactive behavior as e.g. required for the functional validation of systems in complex operational scenarios. The behavior of the overall system needs to be implicitly derived from the individual actions and reactions of all involved actors, resulting in a potential emergent behavior that must to be mirrored in simulation. Subsequently, the implementation of such an approach requires the integration of capabilities to the structure of digital twins as well as a novel methodology for the process and behavior modeling with digital twins. In this paper, we present such an approach and its application for the functional validation of an ADAS function by simulating and analyzing virtual test scenarios.