Text
Simulating the Future: Testing Industrial Systems Before They Exist
Modern industrial systems—from railway communication networks to factory automation—are becoming increasingly complex. Small design decisions made early in development can determine whether a product performs reliably, overheats, or fails costly certification tests months later. Yet those early decisions are often made with limited data and many uncertainties.
A collaboration between Mälardalen University and Westermo Network Technologies explores how simulation and model-based engineering can help engineers validate critical design decisions long before physical prototypes exist.
The problem: decisions made too late
Industrial embedded systems are typically developed through several rounds of physical prototyping. Each prototype must be manufactured, assembled, and tested—a process that can take weeks or months.
If problems are discovered late, the consequences can be costly:
- redesigning hardware
- delaying product launches
- repeating expensive prototype rounds
In the Westermo case, engineers identified thermal behaviour as a particularly critical issue. Industrial network devices must operate in harsh environments and are designed without moving parts such as cooling fans, meaning heat must dissipate through the chassis itself.
If the thermal design fails, the entire product architecture may need to be reconsidered.
The idea: explore designs virtually
The basic idea behind the research is simple: test designs digitally before building them physically.
This concept—often called virtual prototyping—is a promising benefit of the further digitalization of systems engineering. In this work, we describe how we identified opportunities for early validation and verification within everyday industrial model-based systems engineering.
Within Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), models are not only used for simulation but also as a shared representation of the system that supports analysis, communication, and decision-making throughout development.
The study aims to show concrete industrial benefits from this approach.
From idea to industrial test case
The research was carried out in close collaboration with Westermo’s engineering teams. Together, the researchers and practitioners developed a lightweight simulation model that predicts how heat develops inside an embedded system.
The model represents the system as a network of thermal components and heat flows. By adjusting parameters such as:
- power consumption
- ambient temperature
- airflow conditions
- heat-sink material and geometry
engineers can quickly explore “what-if” scenarios and estimate whether a design will meet temperature requirements.
The approach was evaluated using data from real products in Westermo’s Lynx industrial Ethernet switch series.
The simulations were compared with measurements from real thermal tests performed in climate chambers. The predicted temperatures converged to values within about ±2 °C of real measurements, demonstrating that even lightweight models can provide useful guidance in early design phases.