The Distributed Co-Simulation Protocol for the Integration of Real-Time Systems and Simulation Environments

Abstract

Virtual system development gets more and more important in many industrial domains. It is considered to reduce development times, lower computing costs, and shorten time-to-market. Co-simulation is a particularly promising approach for modular and interoperable development. In practice the integration and coupling of heterogeneous systems still require enormous efforts. The configuration and operation of distributed hardware-in-the-loop systems and simulations contribute to efficiency of testing. Currently no standardized interface or protocol specification is available, which allows the interaction of real-time and non-real-time systems of different vendors. This paper for the first time presents the Distributed Co-simulation Protocol (DCP) which is subject to proposal as a standard for real-time and non-real-time system integration and simulation. The DCP consists of a data model, a finite state machine, and a communication protocol including a set of protocol data units. It is designed as a tool independent standard. It was developed in context of the ACOSAR project and is subject to standardization as a Modelica Association Project (MAP). It enables the definition, configuration and execution of a wide range of different simulations and test scenarios. It supports a master-slave architecture for simulation setup and control. The specification defines the design of a slave only, the design of a master is not in scope of the specification. To highlight the industrial applicability of the DCP, three examples from the automotive domain are shown.