Abstract
This chapter introduces the different background material needed to understand the next three Chapters respectively presenting the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Multi-Paradigm Modelling (MPM) and Multi-Paradigm Modelling for Cyber-Physical Systems (MPM4CPS) ontologies. It first introduces the approach and tools that have been used to define the ontologies.
It then provides an overview of the ontological framework and a description of the shared ontology, which provides concepts defined in order to frame in a more general context some of the more specific notions of the other ontologies. Then, the chapter presents a brief introduction of the two CPS engineering environments employing MPM that were used to explore the domains covered by the ontologies and to guide readers through our exploration path.