Extension of model-based design to identify and analyze impact of reliability information on systems and components

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10423884-B2
Application number	US-201615171613-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 2, 2016
Priority date	Jun 4, 2015
Publication date	Sep 24, 2019
Grant date	Sep 24, 2019

Abstract

Methods and devices for providing and using a technical computing environment (TCE) for receiving a TCE model that, when executed, simulates behavior of a dynamic physical system, and that represents one or more physical components and their respective reliability information in a block diagram model. Applications of the model include automated system-level datasheet and bill of materials generation, component reliability information discovery, fault and stress assertions, and identification of emergent faults.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising one or more instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
receive a model in a technical computing environment (TCE), the model when executed, simulating behavior of a dynamic physical system, the model including a plurality of model components, the model components corresponding to physical elements associated with the dynamic physical system and associated with at least one performance rating or tolerance;
receive a request to model reliability of the dynamic physical system; and
in response to the request, execute the model in a simulation that includes simulation paths wherein one or more model components, of the model components, are operated outside at least one rating or tolerance associated with the one or more model components to determine a reliability level of the dynamic physical system,
during execution of the model:
execute the model iteratively in the simulation paths, where each simulation path includes operating at least one model component, of the one or more model components, outside at least one rating or tolerance associated with the at least one model component; and
for each iteration that results in a failed behavior in a simulated dynamic physical system, automatically generate component reliability information that indicates operating conditions resulting in the failed behavior.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
during the executing the model:
iteratively invoke one or more faults in at least one of the model components; and
for each invoked one or more faults that results in the failed behavior in the simulated dynamic physical system, generate a fault tree including operating conditions resulting in the failed behavior.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
during executing the model:
apply one or more external stimuli to the simulated dynamic physical system intended to cause performance degradation in at least one of the model components; and
for each applied one or more stimuli that results in the failed behavior in the simulated dynamic physical system, generate a fault tree including operating conditions resulting in the failed behavior.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
during the executing the model:
iteratively invoke one or more faults in at least one of the model components; and
measure an effect on performance that the one or more invoked faults generates in one or more other model components in which faults have not been invoked.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to generate Hardware Description Language (HDL) code from the model.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 5 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
synthesize a programmable hardware device with the generated HDL code; and
test the programmable hardware device.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to test the programmable hardware device through Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing, and wherein the programmable hardware device is connected to a computing device including the one or more processors.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to run another model that interfaces with the programmable hardware device.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
generate code for representing one or more nonconformance with at least one physical component reliability parameter that controls a behavior of at least one of the one or more model components resulting from simulation testing using the model.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the at least one physical component reliability parameter comprises at least one of an operating limit, a recoverable or non-recoverable fault dynamics condition, or a performance tolerance.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to generate a dialog box permitting user editing of the at least one physical component reliability parameter.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the at least one physical component reliability parameter is initialized to a predetermined value based on a selection from a library, via the dialog box, of a physical component to be modeled.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the at least one physical component reliability parameter is extracted from a datasheet associated with a physical component to be modeled.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the executed one or more instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
connect the model to a target device to enable a processor-in-the-loop (PIL) configuration or hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) configuration; and
wherein the executed one or more instructions, when executed to cause the one or more processors to execute the model, cause the one or more processors to:
execute the model in a PIL simulation or a HIL simulation that includes the simulation paths.

15. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, by a computing device, a technical computing environment (TCE) model that, when executed, simulates behavior of a dynamic physical system, the model including
a set of system-level requirements defining acceptable operational behavior for the dynamic physical system, and
a topology of model components, each of the model components corresponding to a physical component within the dynamic physical system and including at least one reliability information value defining acceptable operational behavior of the model component, wherein at least one model component has reliability information for which one or more values have not been defined;

receiving, by the computing device, a request to generate one or more values for the reliability information for the at least one model component; and
in response to the request, executing, by the computing device, the TCE model in iterative simulations such that
operational behaviors of the model components having known reliability information values are varied across a value range(s) defined in the respective reliability information,
an operational behavior of the at least one model component having undefined reliability information value is varied so as to determine a range of reliability information values that maintain operation of the TCE model within the acceptable operational behavior defined by the set of system-level requirements.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15 , further comprising:
identifying, by the computing device, within a database of reliability specifications representing an inventory of available physical components, a set of reliability information values encompassed by the determined range of reliability information values for the at least one model component.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16 , further co

Assignees

• Mathworks Inc

Inventors

• Hyde Richard
• Mestchian Ebrahim M

Classifications

• G06N7/01 Primary

  Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks · CPC title

• G06F17/5009

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06N7/005 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F30/20 Primary

  Design optimisation, verification or simulation (optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30) · CPC title