The FMI Standard and Its Significance in Industry

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FMI as a means to accelerate product development

The Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard is an open standard first released in 2010 as a solution for reducing integration efforts between simulation models and tools.

Since its release, the FMI standard has had a positive impact on industry. Simulation model providers and their customers have been able to improve and streamline the integration process. Moreover, the standard has enabled them to simplify model development, reduce tool development and tool management costs, and accelerate product development and iteration cycles.

FMI as a means to separate concerns

With FMI, simulation model providers and tool providers have the responsibility to comply with the standard. Customers are then free to focus on the development of their target products.

Greater flexibility comes with higher complexity

The FMI 3 standard notably expands on the application use cases compared to its predecessor version, the FMI 2 standard. It is composed of three interface types, approximately 70 function signatures, new data types, and new modes for state machines. In addition, new abstractions such as super-dense time and clock semantics are included.

With the significant increase in functionality, the complexity of ensuring that the required behaviors are being provided also increases. Furthermore, the potential associated costs also need to be considered.

In this regard, Fraunhofer IESE supports customers working with FMI 3 projects by supporting streamlining the development of Functional Mock-Up Units (FMU) with FMI 3. We can assist with the design, establishment, and monitoring of processes to reduce the development and deployment costs of new FMUs.

Significance of the FMI standard in industry – an overall context. Customers are interested in building products. When the need for simulation is determined, the Customer commissions Simulation Engineers. Simulation Engineers are responsible for the appropriate modeling of the product and its context. In addition, they may be responsible for part of the product performance assessment. To fulfill their tasks, a Simulation Engineer may consider the use of third-party simulation models. These can be provided as reusable FMUs, sold separately by various Simulation Model Providers. To execute the devised simulations, a simulation tool capable of importing FMI 3-compliant FMUs is required. Fraunhofer IESE in the position of the Simulation Tool Provider offers FERAL as the to-go solution.

Our virtual engineering solution

Fraunhofer IESE has been developing solutions for simulating arbitrary scenarios that require the inclusion of FMI 3 FMUs in a plug-and-play fashion. To this end, we envision the execution of arbitrary FMUs and simulation scenarios using our FERAL Framework. Our intention is to make this as easy as providing the FMU files and a simulation scenario setup.

FERAL is a powerful and efficient simulation toolset. It provides a framework for devising arbitrary simulation actors. Moreover, it includes ready- and easy-to-use bus simulation models to realize their communications.

We want to leverage the diversity of the market and empower all stakeholders. We do this by enabling the use of off-the-shelf simulation models developed by third parties. Additionally, FERAL’s support of the FMI 3 standard is in line with our objective of providing one of the most efficient and flexible simulation frameworks available.

Our FMI-related services and products

Category	Service	Description
Training	FMI 3 training and workshops	We offer a variety of training and workshops covering the topic of the FMI standard devised for the needs of your company’s teams.
Consulting	FMU assessment	We can support early development activities such as requirements engineering and viability analysis, as well as quality assurance activities, e.g., reviews and inspections of FMUs.
Consulting	Development process establishment	Based on your goals, we can support the creation of tailored development processes focused on FMI 3-related activities to cover the needs of your company.
Consulting	Development process assessment and improvement	We can support your company by detecting sub-optimal process stages and providing insights into how to improve them.
Consulting	General support	Our consulting services encompass multiple domains within the software engineering spectrum. If you feel that we may be able to provide you with support, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Toolset	FERAL	A flexible and efficient simulation toolset and framework with support for FMI 2 and FMI 3 co-simulation.

For more information, check how Fraunhofer IESE can support your company in virtual engineering.

We offer expertise

Be it to devise an FMU, to assure its quality, or to execute it in conjunction with other FMUs and simulation actors – Fraunhofer IESE offers more than 26 years of experience in software engineering to support you.

Our Virtual Engineering department has specialized knowledge that it has applied to many simulation solutions and provides consultancy services on diverse topics within the Virtual Engineering domain. It also licenses its tools to major players in industry.

Our mission is to provide services and solutions that positively impact your product. We are eager to learn how we can assist you in fulfilling your goals more efficiently.