Dynamic system models and their simulation in the Semantic Web

Modelling and Simulation (M&S) are core tools for designing, analysing and operating today’s industrial systems. They often also represent both a valuable asset and a significant investment. Typically, their use is constrained to a software environment intended to be used by engineers on a single computer. However, the knowledge relevant to a task involving modelling and simulation is in general distributed in nature, even across organizational boundaries, and may be large in volume. Therefore, it is desirable to increase the FAIRness (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse) of M&S capabilities; to enable their use in loosely coupled systems of systems; and to support their composition and execution by intelligent software agents. In this contribution, the suitability of Semantic Web technologies to achieve these goals is investigated and an open-source proof of concept-implementation based on the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard is presented. Specifically, models, model instances, and simulation results are exposed through a hypermedia API and an implementation of the Pragmatic Proof Algorithm (PPA) is used to successfully demonstrate the API’s use by a generic software agent. The solution shows an increased degree of FAIRness and fully supports its use in loosely coupled systems. The FAIRness could be further improved by providing more “ rich” (meta)data.