MDA Success Story

Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Research Center
Heidelberg, Germany

Contact: Interactive Objects Software GmbH, www.io-software.com 

Tools used: ArcStyler, UML, MDA

Description:
In close connection with the ABB business areas and the other seven ABB research centers in Europe and United States, ABB Corporate Research Heidelberg supports the operating companies in product and system development as well as in services with basic research, new technologies and innovative solutions.

Problem:
The group's activities focus on developing innovative solutions to problems in electric power generation, transmission, distribution and industrial use in the form of system concepts and product designs. In particular
· virtual prototypes: simulations of electromagnetic effects using geometrically complex 3D models of, for example, power transformers, switch gear at all voltage levels and electromechanical systems to reduce the requirements for physical prototypes.
· system models: complex representations of, for example, configurations for distributed power generation using among other sources wind power.

Solution:
According to the MDA concepts, the ArcStyler from Interactive Objects Software is used to model simulation systems for virtual prototypes. Based on these models, Internet-centric state-of-the-art integrated environments for simulation-based design are automatically generated with the ArcStyler Generator.

Results and Benefits:
Alone in the pilot project cost savings of approx. USD 16.000 could be realized which will increase when used on a broader basis (20 Developer days were saved). The separation of application model and code ensures independence from implementation technology. The code quality produced by the ArcStyler's model based generation is consistent and clean, reducing the number of programmers and test engineers required to develop and maintain the test environments.

Lessons learned:
ArcStyler was helpful in getting the project started very rapidly. By reusing the proven distribution and persistence architecture encoded in the templates of the ArcStyler the team was able to focus on modeling of the simulation system instead of dealing with technical implementation details.

Last updated on 04/23/2013