Hans Vangheluwe: A ‘‘most appropriate’’ Talk

Le lien vers l’enregistrement se trouve ici (durée : 1 heure et 43 minutes).

Heure et date : le 12 juin 2024 à 12h00
Lieu : PK-4610 et Zoom
Conférencier : Hans Vangheluwe, University of Antwerp – Flanders Make, Belgium
Titre : A ‘‘most appropriate’’ Talk

Abstract: As the complexity of Cyber-Physical Systems (of Systems) we build grows, the need for an elegant theory, and methods, techniques, and tools to tackle that complexity increases. This talk gives a very personal and anecdotal overview of some attempts to tackle the complexity of engineered systems by explicitly « modelling everything » (that is relevant, at some point in time) by means of « most appropriate » views, architectures, and workflows, and this for all phases of the system life-cycle such as system requirements, design and deployment/realization. To represent each of these views, architectures, and workflows, we use models, at « most appropriate » levels of detail/abstraction/fidelity, using « most appropriate » modelling languages (formalisms). This appropriateness is of course highly subjective and depends on the application domain, the background of the modeller, availability of tools, etc. A major challenge is a heterogeneity in domain silos, in modelling abstractions and formalisms, and in particular how to combine these. Even for this challenge, as well as for the construction of supporting editing, simulation, debugging, … tooling, using « most appropriate » abstractions and formalisms turns out to be beneficial. This talk will both look back at past challenges and solutions and will try to extrapolate « most appropriate modelling » into a future where dealing with « change » plays a central role.

Biography: Hans Vangheluwe is a Professor in the Antwerp Systems and Software Modelling (AnSyMo) group within the Computer Science Department at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, where he is a founding member of the NEXOR Consortium on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). AnSyMo is a Core Research Lab of Flanders Make, the strategic research centre for the Flemish manufacturing industry. He heads the Modelling, Simulation and Design Lab (MSDL), founded when he was a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In a variety of projects, often with industrial partners, he develops and applies the model-based theory and techniques of Multi-Paradigm Modelling (MPM) in application domains as diverse as bio-actived sludge waste-water treatment plant design and optimization (which led to the WEST commercial tool), safe automotive software (within the NECSIS project), and autonomic production plants in the context of Industry 4.0.

His fundamental work covers the foundations of modelling and (co-)simulation, of model management, model transformation, and collaborative domain-specific (visual) modelling environments. This work is always accompanied by prototype tools such as WEST, Python(P)DEVS, the Modelverse, T-Core, AToM3 (with Juan de Lara) and AToMPM. In the mid’ 90s, he was one of the original members of the equation-based, object-oriented modelling language Modelica design team, one of the initiatives of the ESPRIT Basic Research Working Group 8467 on ‘‘simulation for the future: new concepts, tools and applications’’ (SiE) which he co-founded. He has published extensively in simulation and in software modelling. He frequently gives tutorials on topics such as Statecharts, DEVS, co-simulation, modelling language engineering and a-causal modelling. He was the co-organizer, with Vasco Amaral, of Summer Schools such as Domain-Specific Modelling, Theory and Practice (DSM-TP). Recently, he was the chair of the EU COST Action IC1404 ‘‘Multi-Paradigm Modelling for Cyber-Physical Systems’’ (MPM4CPS). He is known to try to ‘‘model everything explicitly …’’.