Ontology has many applications to engineering but is not easily taken up by engineers. For example, specifying products in space and time together (four dimensions) enables more reliable modelling and analysis, but this work is primarily ontological and not accessible to most engineers. This paper summarises an existing method for integrating ontology and engineering, then applies it to four-dimensional requirements modelling, extending prior results. Requirements in this paper are treated as desired effects of a system on its operating environment. These effects are often respecified in multiple designs and tools, leading to redundancy and potential inconsistency. This can be addressed with centralised models of operating environment developed in systems engineering languages. These languages can specify the structure of operating environments formally enough to specify desired effects (except for spatial aspects), but cannot do the same for desired behaviour of those environments, because behaviours typically specify actions taken by a system to achieve those effects. This paper proposes new engineering-accessible extensions to logical system modelling for specifying intended environmental effects, including spatial relationships, without committing to the actions taken to achieve them. The proposed model supports centralised specifications of required system effects on their operating environments, enabling efficient integration with design.

中文翻译：

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集成四维本体和系统需求建模

本体在工程上有很多应用，但不容易被工程师采用。例如，在空间和时间中一起指定产品（四个维度）可以实现更可靠的建模和分析，但这项工作主要是本体论，大多数工程师无法访问。本文总结了现有的集成本体和工程的方法，然后将其应用于四维需求建模，扩展了先前的结果。本文中的需求被视为系统对其操作环境的预期效果。这些影响通常在多个设计和工具中重新指定，导致冗余和潜在的不一致。这可以通过以系统工程语言开发的集中式操作环境模型来解决。这些语言可以正式地指定操作环境的结构以指定所需的效果（空间方面除外），但不能对这些环境的所需行为做同样的事情，因为行为通常指定系统为实现这些效果而采取的操作。本文提出了逻辑系统建模的新的工程可访问扩展，用于指定预期的环境影响，包括空间关系，而无需承诺为实现它们而采取的行动。所提出的模型支持对其操作环境所需系统影响的集中规范，从而实现与设计的有效集成。因为行为通常指定系统为实现这些效果而采取的操作。本文提出了逻辑系统建模的新的工程可访问扩展，用于指定预期的环境影响，包括空间关系，而无需承诺为实现它们而采取的行动。所提出的模型支持对其操作环境所需系统影响的集中规范，从而实现与设计的有效集成。因为行为通常指定系统为实现这些效果而采取的操作。本文提出了逻辑系统建模的新的工程可访问扩展，用于指定预期的环境影响，包括空间关系，而无需承诺为实现它们而采取的行动。所提出的模型支持对其操作环境所需系统影响的集中规范，从而实现与设计的有效集成。