An Engineer-Friendly Terminology of White, Black and Grey-Box Models

Eugen Boos, Mauritz Mälzer, Felix Conrad, Hajo Wiemer, Steffen Ihlenfeldt, Steffen Ihlenfeldt

2025

Abstract

In engineering modeling, white-box and black-box concepts represent two fundamental approaches for modeling systems. White-box models rely on detailed prior knowledge of the physical system, enabling transparent and explainable representations. Black-box models, on the other hand, consist of opaque internal workings and decision-making processes that prevent immediate interpretability. They are mainly data-driven, relying on statistical methods to capture system behavior. Depending on the literature at hand, the exact definitions of these two approaches differ. With the continuous emergence of machine learning algorithms in engineering and their move towards enhanced explainability and usability, the exact definition and assignment of white- and black-box properties soften. Grey-box modeling provides a hybrid approach. However, this term, as widely as it is used, has no clear definition either. This paper proposes a novel model on the relation of white-, black- and grey-box modeling, offering an improved categorization of conventional vanilla models, state-of-the-art hybrid models as well as the derivation of recommendations for action for targeted model improvement.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Boos E., Mälzer M., Conrad F., Wiemer H. and Ihlenfeldt S. (2025). An Engineer-Friendly Terminology of White, Black and Grey-Box Models. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Model-Based Software and Systems Engineering - Volume 1: MODELSWARD; ISBN 978-989-758-729-0, SciTePress, pages 313-320. DOI: 10.5220/0013361400003896

in Bibtex Style

@conference{modelsward25,
author={Eugen Boos and Mauritz Mälzer and Felix Conrad and Hajo Wiemer and Steffen Ihlenfeldt},
title={An Engineer-Friendly Terminology of White, Black and Grey-Box Models},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Model-Based Software and Systems Engineering - Volume 1: MODELSWARD},
year={2025},
pages={313-320},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013361400003896},
isbn={978-989-758-729-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Model-Based Software and Systems Engineering - Volume 1: MODELSWARD
TI - An Engineer-Friendly Terminology of White, Black and Grey-Box Models
SN - 978-989-758-729-0
AU - Boos E.
AU - Mälzer M.
AU - Conrad F.
AU - Wiemer H.
AU - Ihlenfeldt S.
PY - 2025
SP - 313
EP - 320
DO - 10.5220/0013361400003896
PB - SciTePress