Formal validation techniques for Ontology-based Device Descriptions

Ontology-based Device Descriptions (ODDs) have been developed to overcome the shortcomings of established electronic device descriptions. They provide means for a comprehensive support of the whole design process of automation systems and enable an automated design. However, for a proper and faultless design support, the validity and integrity of the OWL based ODDs is essential. For that purpose this paper investigates formal validation techniques for a computerized verification of ODDs. Following, a validator is presented, which combines OWL reasoning with integrity constraints (ICs). The validator assures the consistency, completeness and correctness of ODDs and is capable of checking expressive logical constraints. An explanation component informs the user about constraint violations and gives advice on how to resolve them.