Executable Model-Based Systems Engineering for Aircraft Systems: Landing Gear Extension and Retraction Use Cases

The number of requirements needed to specify aircraft systems is increasing alongside system complexity and performance targets. As requirements become increasingly difficult to validate using document-based methods, digital twin advancements encourage the use of model-centric approaches. This paper proposes a method and discusses the limitations associated with using executable modeling to validate system requirements. The method describes the process needed to ease the transition from descriptive to executable modeling. Including functional simulation considerations early in the development process allows validation to take place in a shorter amount of time and prevents re-work. Executable modeling is limited by tools, modeling languages, and the required time and expertise needed to create meaningful models. This paper shows that event-based simulation enables the validation of requirement correctness by comparing simulated and specified behaviour. A proof-of-concept landing gear system model focused on extension and retraction use cases demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.