The complexity of cyber–physical systems (CPSs) is commonly addressed through complex workflows, involving models in a plethora of different formalisms, each with their own methods, techniques, and tools. Some workflow patterns, combined with particular types of formalisms and operations on models in these formalisms, are used successfully in engineering practice. To identify and reuse them, we refer to these combinations of workflow and formalism patterns as modelling paradigms. This paper proposes a unifying (Descriptive) Framework to describe these paradigms, as well as their combinations. This work is set in the context of Multi-Paradigm Modelling (MPM), which is based on the principle to model every part and aspect of a system explicitly, at the most appropriate level(s) of abstraction, using the most appropriate modelling formalism(s) and workflows. The purpose of the Descriptive Framework presented in this paper is to serve as a basis to reason about these formalisms, workflows, and their combinations. One crucial part of the framework is the ability to capture the structural essence of a paradigm through the concept of a paradigmatic structure. This is illustrated informally by means of two example paradigms commonly used in CPS: Discrete Event Dynamic Systems and Synchronous Data Flow. The presented framework also identifies the need to establish whether a paradigm candidate follows, or qualifies as, a (given) paradigm. To illustrate the ability of the framework to support combining paradigms, the paper shows examples of both workflow and formalism combinations. The presented framework is intended as a basis for characterisation and classification of paradigms, as a starting point for a rigorous formalisation of the framework (allowing formal analyses), and as a foundation for MPM tool development.

网络物理系统 ( CPS )的复杂性通常通过复杂的工作流程来解决，其中涉及大量不同形式的模型，每种形式都有自己的方法、技术和工具。一些工作流模式，结合特定类型的形式主义和这些形式主义中的模型操作，在工程实践中得到了成功的应用。为了识别和重用它们，我们将这些工作流和形式主义模式的组合称为建模范式。本文提出了一个统一的（描述性）框架来描述这些范式，以及它们的组合。这项工作是在多范式建模( MPM)的背景下进行的，它基于以下原则，在最合适的抽象级别，使用最合适的建模形式，对系统的每个部分和方面进行显式建模(s) 和工作流程。本文中描述的框架的目的是作为推理这些形式主义、工作流及其组合的基础。该框架的一个关键部分是能够通过范式结构的概念来捕捉范式的结构本质. 这通过 CPS 中常用的两个示例范式非正式地说明：离散事件动态系统和同步数据流。提出的框架还确定需要确定范式候选者是否遵循或符合（给定）范式。为了说明该框架支持组合范式的能力，本文展示了工作流和形式主义组合的示例。所提出的框架旨在作为范式表征和分类的基础，作为框架严格形式化的起点（允许形式分析），并作为MPM工具开发的基础。