Flexible Model-Based Simulation as a System’s

International audienceComplex systems traditionally involve partners from different companieswith their own domains of expertise. During design stages, these partners need toexchange pieces of information and to debate around architectural and implementationchoices.Model Driven Engineering for System Engineering simplifies system knowledgesharing, while simulation provides sound results to drive debate. As a consequence,gaining a flexible and dynamic tool that models and simulates the architecture ishighly valuable.In this paper we focus on the functional architecture design and analysis steps of thesystem engineering process. We identify adaptation to existing system engineeringprocess, tool modularity and interaction with models as three grounding principlesfor a flexible system model simulation tool. We show that meta-modeling and layeredarchitecture for a simulator are enabling technologies for our three principles.We also demonstrate the use of these technologies by implementing a simulationtool in the context of a sea-floor observatory project