C. E. Lucas, E. A. Walters, J. Jatskevich, O. Wasynczuk, PC Krause and Associates, Inc; P. T. Lamm, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
In this paper, a new technique useful for the numerical simulation of large-scale systems is presented. This approach enables the overall system simulation to be formed by the dynamic interconnection of the various interdependent simulations, each representing a specific component or subsystem such as control, electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, or thermal. Each simulation may be developed separately using possibly different commercial-off-the-shelf simulation programs thereby allowing the most suitable language or tool to be used based on the design/analysis needs. These subsystems communicate the required interface variables at specific time intervals. A discussion concerning the selection of appropriate communication intervals is presented herein. For the purpose of demonstration, this technique is applied to a detailed simulation of a representative aircraft power system, such as that found on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). This system is comprised of ten component models each developed using MATLAB/SimulinkTM, EASY5TM, or ACSLTM. When the ten component simulations were distributed across just four personal computers (PCs), a greater than 15-fold improvement in simulation speed (compared to the single-computer implementation) was achieved.
SPIE 17th Annual International Symposium AeroSense, April 22-25, 2003, Orlando, FL. and SPIE Proceedings Enabling Technologies for Simulation Science VII, vol. 5091, September 4, 2003, pp. 86-97.