CODES: An Integrated Approach to Composable Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

In component-based simulation, models developed in different locations and for specific purposes can be selected and assembled in various combinations to meet diverse user requirements. This paper proposes CODES (COmposable Discrete-Event scalable Simulation), an approach to component-based modeling and simulation that supports model reuse across multiple application domains. A simulation component is viewed by the modeller as a black box with an in-and/or out-channel. The attributes and behavior of the component abstracted as a meta-component are described using COML (COmponent Markup Language), a markup language we propose for representing simulation components. The integrated approach, supported by a proposed COSMO (COmponent-oriented Simulation and Modeling Ontology) ontology, consists of four main steps. Component discovery returns a set of syntactically valid model components. Syntactic composability is determined by our proposed EBNF syntactic composition rules. Validation of semantic composability is performed using our proposed data and behavior alignment algorithms. The semantically valid simulation component is subsequently stored in a model repository for reuse. As proof of concept, we discuss a prototype implementation of the CODES framework using queueing system as an application domain example.

An approach to semantic-based model discovery and selection

“…We propose the COSMO (COmponent Simulation and Modeling Ontology) ontology for describing component-oriented simulation within and across application domains to support discovery, reuse, and validation of the composed models (Teo and Szabo 2008). The COSMO hierarchy spans two main directions, as shown in Figure 1(a).…”

“…The component-based model development life-cycle in CoDES (Teo and Szabo 2008) follows four main steps, namely conceptual model definition, syntactic verification, model discovery and selection, and semantic validation. In Conceptual Model Definition, a simulation problem is translated into a conceptual model using a graphical editor.…”

“…The transitions between states are defined as a set of triggers expressed in terms of input, time and conditions. To represent simulation models in a computer readable format we propose the COML markup language (Teo and Szabo 2008), which is described in a XSD schema using entities from our proposed COSMO ontology.…”

“…In our previous work, we proposed the CoDES (Composable Discrete-Event scalable Simulation) approach for component-based simulation model development (Teo and Szabo 2008). In CoDES, the composed model follows a four-step life-cycle.…”

Semantic Virtual Factory supporting interoperable modelling and evaluation of production systems

“…In [11] the study introduces a component-based modelling and simulation approach that supports model reuse across multiple application domains called CODES. The attributes and behaviour of the components are abstracted as meta-components and are described using COML (COmponent Markup Language).…”