System Composer

Design, analyze, and simulate system and software architectures

System Composer enables the specification and analysis of architectures for model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and modeling of software architectures. You can allocate requirements, refine an architecture model, and design and simulate in Simulink.

System Composer lets you directly author architecture models consisting of components, ports, connectors, and interfaces, import them from other tools, or populate them from the architectural elements of Simulink designs. You can describe your system using multiple architecture models and establish direct relationships between them via model-to-model allocations. You can capture and simulate behaviors in sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, state charts, or models in Simulink, Stateflow, and Simscape. You can define and simulate the execution order of component functions and generate code from your software and AUTOSAR architecture models (with Simulink and Embedded Coder and AUTOSAR Blockset for AUTOSAR workflows).

To investigate specific design or analysis concerns, you can create custom live views of the model. In architecture models, you can analyze requirements, capture properties via stereotyping, perform trade studies, and produce specifications and interface control documents (ICDs).

Architecture Authoring

Create and elaborate specifications of architectures, compositions, and interfaces for model-based systems engineering and software.

What Is System Composer? (1:44)

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot showing System Composer canvas with Requirements Perspective and linking a component in a system architecture to a requirement.

Requirements Allocation and Traceability

Associate architecture model elements with requirements. Iteratively decompose architectures while deriving additional requirements to create specifications.

What Is Requirements Toolbox (2:25)

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot of components in a system architecture with domain-specific design data added on as custom properties.

Profiles and Analysis

Add custom properties to architectural elements to extend your architecture with domain-specific design data and apply MATLAB analytics to perform trade studies.

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot of View Browser being used to visualize different Model Views.

Live Model Views and Edits

Produce full and subset model views for specific design or analysis concerns. Visualize the model views using different diagram types. Edit across hierarchies.

Author Architecture Models Through Component Diagram Views

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot of Allocations Editor showing relationships between architectural elements in one model and another model.

Architectural Allocation

Establish directed relationships between elements of two architecture models representing different aspects of the system such as functional, software, or physical architectures.

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot of a sequence diagram showing interaction between components in a sequence of message exchanges as a part of describing system behavior.

Behavioral Modeling

Describe system and component-level behavior using various formalisms such as block diagrams, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams, and state charts.

Behavior Diagrams for Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) (3 videos)

Documentation | Examples

Screenshot of a software architecture diagram with components of a throttle position control system.

Software and AUTOSAR Architectures

Define the execution order of functions, simulate your service-oriented architectures (SOAs) or other designs at the architecture level, and generate and deploy code to your embedded system.

Documentation | Examples

Implementation with Model-Based Design

Implement components in your architectural designs in Simulink, Stateflow, Simscape, and FMUs with consistent interfaces and traceability using Model-Based Design.

Implement Component Behavior Using Simulink

Documentation | Examples

A hypothetical workflow showing import and export of an architecture into and out of System Composer.

Architecture Import and Export

Import SysML, AUTOSAR (ARXML), and other architectural models created in third-party databases or architecture modeling tools for integration with MATLAB and Simulink. Export as needed to communicate design changes upstream.

Documentation | Examples

Product Resources:

Documentation Examples Videos Requirements Release notes

System Composer FAQs

System Composer is a tool for modeling system and software architectures and behaviors. It allows engineers to define system structure, interfaces, and interactions, and to connect architecture models to requirements, behavior models, and detailed designs. 

Model‑Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is an approach to systems engineering that uses digital models to define, analyze, and manage system requirements, architecture, behavior, and verification throughout the lifecycle. Instead of relying primarily on documents, teams use models as the authoritative source of system information. 

System Composer is used across industries to model complex, multidisciplinary systems, including aerospace and defense systems, vehicles, industrial automation systems, medical devices, energy systems, and large software‑intensive products. 

System Composer is built on the same modeling framework as Simulink and works directly with MATLAB. This allows system‑level architecture models to connect seamlessly to simulations, analyses, and detailed component models created in the MathWorks environment. 

Yes. System Composer supports executable and analyzable system models by connecting architecture elements to behavior models and simulations. This enables early evaluation of system behavior, interactions, and trade‑offs before detailed implementation or physical prototypes. 

System Composer works with Requirements Toolbox to author or import requirements and link them directly to architecture elements, behavior models, designs, and tests. This supports traceability and helps teams understand the impact of requirement changes across the system.  Requirements can be imported from Word, Excel, IBM DOORS Classic, DOORS Next, and other tools. Imported requirements can remain read‑only or be managed directly within the MathWorks environment, depending on the workflow. 

System Composer is not a SysML diagramming tool, but it supports many familiar SysML diagrams, like activity diagrams, sequence diagrams, internal block diagrams and state machines.  It also supports interoperability with other MBSE tools. Architecture models can be imported using standard exchange formats, and requirements can be linked using common interchange standards. This allows System Composer to coexist with other MBSE environments. 

System Composer interoperates with SysML v2 workflows through model exchange and open APIs. Architectures can be exported using SysML v2 textual notation compatible formats, and MATLAB REST APIs enable integration with external SysML v2 repositories and digital engineering platforms. 

Yes. System Composer supports modeling AUTOSAR Classic and Adaptive architectures. Architecture models can be imported from or exported to AUTOSAR XML (ARXML) using AUTOSAR Blockset, and linked to Simulink models for code generation. 

System Composer provides a shared system architecture model that connects system engineers, software architects, and domain specialists. By linking architecture, requirements, behavior, and design models, teams can work from a common understanding of the system and reduce miscommunication. 