Compatibility and reuse in component-based systems via type and unit inference

In many branches of industry, the component-based approach to systems design is predominant, e. g., as in embedded control systems which are often modelled using MATLAB/Simulink. In order to facilitate reuse, and to raise the level of abstraction for future designs and frequently used functions, the employed tool sets offer built-in mechanisms to create sophisticated component libraries. For large, real-world designs, however, it is not always clear, whether or not a certain context violates even the most basic design assumptions of employed library components, thus often leading to expensive runtime errors. This paper introduces a practical method for checking compatibility of large designs, statically. This method not only ensures that large component-based designs provide a context such that all (library) components have well defined types, but it also ensures that transmitted physical units, such as m2, km/h, mph, etc. are preserved during computation. As such the possibility for runtime errors is reduced, and a metric for sound component reuse given.