From engineering models to digital twins: Generating AAS from SysML v2 models

Context: Digital twins serve as virtual representations of systems, enabling capabilities such as intelligent monitoring, real-time control, decision-making, and predictive analytics. The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is the pivotal Industry 4.0 standard for digital twin engineering. In parallel, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) has emerged as a modeling standard for systems engineering, providing a formalized and semantically rich approach to system modeling. SysML v2 is its recent evolution. With its growing adoption, multiple models are expected to be widely available, each capturing different facets of the modeled system by leveraging diverse engineering capabilities offered by various tool ecosystems. Problem: Instead of manually re-creating models for digital twinning, existing system models should be leveraged to relieve repetitive modeling tasks. While SysML v2 and AAS are prominent standards in DT engineering, they lack direct integration, necessitating a dedicated approach for their seamless interoperability. Purpose: This paper presents a practical investigation into the conceptual alignment between the SysML v2 and AAS specifications, with a focus on their structural and behavioral modeling aspects. It proposes an implementable approach for mapping SysML v2 to AAS, enabling the automated generation of AAS models from SysML v2 models. Method: To realize this approach, we employ model-driven engineering techniques leveraging the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and model transformations based on the Query View Transformation (QVT) language. The proposed model transformation incorporates query mechanisms for extracting structured elements, preserving information and structural integrity, and ensuring static semantic consistency at design-time and seamless integration between the two investigated standards. We develop and validate the model transformation following an iterative test-driven development approach using an existing set of 24 SysML v2 examples, sourced from the official SysML v2 repository. Result: We deliver a QVT-based, EMF-compliant transformation that automatically generates AAS submodel templates from SysML v2 models, preserving structural hierarchies and behavioral semantics via dedicated AAS concepts and their extension. Through an iterative, test-driven development process, we validate metamodel conformance, information preservation, and structural integrity. The current mapping addresses design-time concepts, and the implementation supports forward transformation. All conceptual mappings, QVT scripts, and example artifacts are publicly available in a dedicated repository.