Design issues for CACSD systems

The aim of this paper is to address some of the wider issues relating to how CACSD systems should be designed in the future in order to more closely meet the needs of the control system designer. Through an analysis of the nature of the design activity, the various stages through which the designer must pass before arriving at a final design, and the need to interact with external influences during the design process, it is possible to identify a number of essential components for any CACSD system. The integration of these components, using their common structure and objectives, e.g., the need to both formally specify and to reason about the design, including proving the design to be correct, provides the basis of a design environment which contains two major related tools, a formal design language and a design knowledge base. The complete environment is provided by adding to these basic components a set of integrated tools to support the use of the CACSD system, taking account of the more general human factors aspects of interactive computing.