THE MODULAR DESIGN EVALUATION MODEL: SUPPORT FOR DECISION-MAKING IN CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN

Complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) design often starts from a set of legacy components and/or subsystems that help form the base of new systems. However, despite a finite set of possible combinations, the design space may be impractically large, which makes exhaustive analysis of all possible solutions for decision-making challenging. This paper proposes the Modular Design Evaluation Model (MDEM) as an approach to early design-stage system analysis, decision-making and implicit documentation through a proposed extension of the Design Structure Matrix (DSM). The MDEM integrates relative resource assessments of system elements for various design aspects of different type with an extension of the DSM that assumes a set of alternative CPS elements to be combined into new designs. The model helps reducing the design space and generates decision trees for alternative system evolution with an associated resource consumption, considering various design aspects and perspectives.