Our Vision: Seamless, Cross‑Disciplinary Development of Cyber‑Physical Systems

Modern cyber‑physical systems (CPS) are created by experts from many disciplines—mechanical engineers, electronics specialists, software architects, and more. Each works in their own design space with their own view of the system. Today, these views often clash or fall out of sync, slowing development and threatening system quality.

The CRC’s vision is to change this.

We aim to establish a unified development methodology that enables fast release cycles, high dependability, and effortless configurability—while allowing engineers to work in the tools and perspectives they know best.

At the heart of this vision is the Virtualised Single Underlying Model (V‑SUM). It links together all engineering views—CAD models, hardware architectures, software designs, and beyond—making their dependencies explicit. When one view changes, V‑SUM helps keep the others consistent, through smart automation and interactive guidance.

Our research tackles the key questions of tomorrow’s CPS engineering:

• What must remain consistent across disciplines?
• How can we detect, preserve, and restore consistency efficiently?
• Which inconsistencies matter—and which do not?
• How can new cross‑cutting roles (e.g., for dependability or sustainability) be supported across all views?

By combining formal consistency models, powerful synchronization algorithms, and tool‑supported processes, we pave the way for engineers from different domains to collaborate seamlessly.

Our goal: A new generation of model‑based, cross‑disciplinary CPS development—where complexity becomes manageable, innovation becomes faster, and consistency is no longer an obstacle but a catalyst.