The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is the standardised digital representation of industrial assets within the Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) landscape, as defined by the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA). An AAS encapsulates an asset’s complete lifecycle


The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is the standardised digital representation of industrial assets within the Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) landscape, as defined by the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA). An AAS encapsulates an asset’s complete lifecycle information — from design-time specifications through to operational data — structured as a hierarchy of typed submodels. Importantly, the AAS metamodel is itself formally specified in UML class diagram syntax, published as an XML artefact and maintained in the official IDTA specification repository.

Despite this UML-grounded foundation, existing AAS authoring tools — most prominently the AASX Package Explorer — require engineers to interact directly with raw serialisation formats (XML, JSON, AASX). This creates a significant cognitive gap: systems engineers who are already proficient in UML must abandon their familiar modelling paradigm and operate at the level of data files rather than structured models. No lightweight, standalone UML-based AAS editor currently offers live connectivity to a running AAS repository server.

Goal

The goal of this thesis is to design and implement a UML class/object diagram-based editor for Asset Administration Shells that connects to a live AAS repository server via its REST API. The editor shall render the current repository state as UML diagrams — using class diagrams to represent AAS submodel structure and object diagrams to represent concrete asset instances — and allow users to create, modify, and delete AAS elements through direct manipulation of those diagrams. The tool shall be realised either as a web-based application or as a Visual Studio Code extension (following the architecture established by tools such as bigUML), and shall include basic model validation against the AAS metamodel constraints.

Tasks

  • Survey existing AAS editors (AASX Package Explorer, Eclipse BaSyx UI, Papyrus4Manufacturing) and UML tooling frameworks (bigUML, Sprotty, Eclipse GLSP) to identify the most suitable technical foundation
  • Design a mapping between the IDTA AAS metamodel (v3.x) and UML class/object diagram concepts, including submodels, submodel elements, properties, and references
  • Implement a live connection layer that reads from and writes to a running AAS repository server via the standardised AAS REST API (IDTA Part 2)
  • Develop the graphical editor with support for class diagram-based AAS type/submodel browsing and object diagram-based instance inspection and editing
  • Implement metamodel-based validation, providing inline feedback on constraint violations within the diagram view
  • Evaluate the tool through a case study involving a realistic industrial AAS scenario, comparing usability and modelling effort against the AASX Package Explorer

Nice to have

  • Interest in TypeScript/JavaScript, or VS Code extension development
  • Familiarity with UML modelling concepts (class diagrams, object diagrams)
  • Interest in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and digital twins
  • Basic understanding of REST APIs and JSON data formats
  • Familiarity with Industry 4.0 concepts is advantageous but not mandatory
UML-Based Live Editor for Asset Administration Shell Repositories