About Functional and Logical Systems

You can initiate a functional or logical structure in the tree to organize the conceptual definition of your product and ensure that it satisfies all its requirements.

The Add > Content command enables to insert :

• Functional references
• Service references, inherited from functionnal references
• Mission references, inherited from functionnal references
• Dymola behavior functions
• Logical references
• System references, inherited from logical references
• Dymola behavior components.

Once you initiated a structure, you can develop your functional, logical and even physical hierarchy by inserting a new or an existing reference inside the new, or existing object root. For more information, see Inserting a Reference.

The tree is broken down into four categories.

• Requirement: Provides a requirement definition of the product.

• Functional: Defines the services (functions) the product must provide to fulfill the requirements.

  Functions can be broken down further into subfunctions.

  For each function the Input and Output flows are defined. These flows can be of two types:

  • data flow - exchange of data
  • control flow - order of activating/deactivating of the function.

  Behaviors can be added to functions.

• Logical: Defines the logical architecture of the product using components, relations between components and the behavior.
• Physical: Provides a virtual definition of the real world product.

Each category is built independently in the tree but relationships can also be defined between items in different categories.

The RFLP approach can rely on standard data (or entities for previous projects) to speed-up the design in the functional, logical, or even physical stages. This standard data is often organized in catalogs and can be retrieved and reused in a new definition of a product.

You can add functions, flows, logical references and logical types to catalog to reuse them when you create another RFLP design.

It is possible to insert...	in...	in order to...
A function from catalog	another function	decompose it.
A flow from catalog *	another flow	decompose it.
	a function port or interface	decompose the flow associated to the port or interface.
	a function	create a port, associated with the flow from the catalog.
A logical component from catalog	another logical component	decompose it.
A type from catalog *	another type	decompose it.
	a logical component	create a port, associated with the type from the catalog.
	a logical port	In that case several situations can occur: If the port had no type prior to the insert, the type selected in the catalog is associated to the port. If the port had a type prior to the insert, a Use Type dialog box is displayed allowing the user to choose between replacing the port type or decomposing the existing port type with the type selected in the catalog.

Important: * When inserting flows and logical types from catalog, the Insert new reference command aborts and a warning message is displayed if the following conditions are reached: If the selected port is already linked to the flow/type selected in the catalog. If the selected flow/type is the same as the flow/type selected in the catalog.

For more information about catalogs, see the Design IP Classification User's Guide.