Functional digital mock-up and the functional mock-up interface - two complementary approaches for a comprehensive investigation of heterogeneous systems

Functional Digital Mock-up (FDMU) and Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) are two keywords arising in the last years in simulation technology. In this paper, we would like to show that both principles, aiming at a comprehensive investigation of heterogeneous systems, e.g. from mechatronics, are not necessarily competing with each other but may be combined to benefit from the ideas behind. The approaches are based on different ideas and cover different aspects of the interaction of modern simulation tools. For that reason different constraints have to be considered, which do not make things easier. Both principles have advantages and disadvantages. However, by combining both ways, a powerful framework for handling a broad variety of simulation tasks can be formed. In the paper, a possible approach for integrating both technologies will be shown.