Abstract
The description of a complex system in terms of constituent components and their interaction is one of the most natural and intuitive ways of decomposition. Causal Block Diagram (CBD) models combine subsystem blocks in a network of relationships between input signals and output signals. Popular modelling and simulation tools such as Matlab/Simulink® implement different variants from the family of Causal Block Diagram formalisms. This chapter gives an overview of modelling and simulation of systems with software and physical components using Causal Block Diagrams. It describes the syntax and - both declarative and operational - semantics of CBDs incrementally. Starting from simple algebraic models (no notion of time), we introduce, first a discrete notion of time (leading to discrete-time CBDs) and subsequently, a continuous notion of time (leading to continuous-time CBDs). Each new variant builds on the previous ones. Because of the heavy dependency of CBDs on numerical techniques, we give an intuitive introduction to this important field, pointing out main solutions as well as pitfalls.
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Gomes, C., Denil, J., Vangheluwe, H. (2020). Causal-Block Diagrams: A Family of Languages for Causal Modelling of Cyber-Physical Systems. In: Carreira, P., Amaral, V., Vangheluwe, H. (eds) Foundations of Multi-Paradigm Modelling for Cyber-Physical Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43946-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43946-0_4
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