Glossary · Automation software engineering and architecture
Model-based development
Also known as: Model-based design, MBD
German: Modellbasierte Entwicklung
In software and systems engineering, model-based development uses models, for example of control behavior, plant dynamics or architecture, as central development artifacts for specification, simulation, verification and often code generation.
- Software engineering
In one sentence
Model-based development uses models as central artifacts for specifying, simulating, verifying and often generating control software.
Example
The motion control team designs the axis controller in a block diagram model, simulates it against a plant model and generates the C code for the drive.
How it applies
- Engineering: Models allow early simulation and tests before hardware exists, for example in a Software-in-the-loop test. Generated code reduces manual coding errors, but the generator and its settings become part of the toolchain to qualify.
- Verification: Test cases can run on the model and on the generated code; comparing both results is a common back-to-back test.
- Documentation: The model is the specification. The documentation team should reuse model views, parameters and state descriptions instead of retyping them, and keep versions aligned with the Configuration baseline.
Model-based vs. model-driven development
The terms overlap. Model-based development uses models to support development; Model-driven development makes models the primary artifact from which code is systematically transformed. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) applies model use at the system level.