Computer Automated Multi-Paradigm Modeling: An Introduction

Modeling and simulation are quickly becoming the primary enablers for complex system design. They allow the representation of intricate knowledge at various levels of abstraction and allow automated analysis as well as synthesis. The heterogeneity of the design process, as much as of the system itself, however, requires a manifold of formalisms tailored to the specific task at hand. Efficient design approaches aim to combine different models of a system under study and maximally use the knowledge captured in them. Computer Automated Multi-Paradigm Modeling (CAMPaM) is the emerging field that addresses the issues involved and formulates a domain-independent framework along three dimensions: (1) multiple levels of abstraction, (2) multiformalism modeling, and (3) meta-modeling. This article presents an overview of the CAMPaM field and shows how transformations assume a central place. These transformation are, in turn, explicitly modeled themselves by graph grammars.