Modelling hybrid systems using statecharts and Modelica

Evaluates the possibility of using the formalism of statecharts, with hybrid features, as a graphical support to describe the dynamic behaviour of complex systems in Modelica. Implementation issues, according to the statecharts semantics, are discussed and the advantages of using an equation based language, to implement the state transitions and nested states, are pointed out. Two levels of statecharts implementation are considered: statecharts library models and components models. Statecharts library models are responsible for capturing events related to the firing of transitions and to the activation and deactivation of states that must be performed when transitions are taken. At the component model level, the statechart is composed by instantiating the basic models provided by the statecharts library.