Large Scale Simulation of Manufacturing and Communications Systems

该补助金为制造和通信系统中出现的复杂系统的大型网络模型的性能评估方法的研究提供资金。 考虑到系统是如此复杂，模拟通常是唯一可行的工具基准系统。不幸的是，仿真不是一种特别可扩展的技术。 该研究的重点是开发快速，高效的复杂系统的仿真方法，通过利用系统的动态先验知识。这样的先验知识可以从例如“流体模型”的检查中获得，该“流体模型”是复杂系统的理想化模型，其中所有实体被建模为流过管道的流体。 关于流体模型，我们已经知道了很多，希望这些信息可以导致非常有效的模拟方法。如果成功，这项研究的结果将确保模拟成为一个比以前更可扩展的工具，用于一大类系统。 其中心思想是，可以在（远）更少的时间内获得更准确的结果。 然后，可以实现更有效的算法，用于搜索不同的操作策略，以确定最佳操作策略，或者至少是比现有策略更好的操作策略。

This grant provides funding for research on methods for performance evaluation of large network models of complex systems that arise in manufacturing and communication systems. The systems in mind are so complex that simulation is typically the only viable tool for benchmarking the system. Unfortunately, simulation is not a particularly scalable technology. The research focuses on developing fast and efficient simulation methods for complex systems, by exploiting prior knowledge of the system's dynamics. Such prior knowledge may be obtained from examination of a "fluid model", for example, which is an idealized model of complex systems where all entities are modeled as fluids flowing through pipes. A great deal is known about fluid models, and the hope is that this information can lead to very efficient simulation methods.If successful, the results of this research will ensure that simulation becomes a more scalable tool than before for a large class of systems. The central idea is that more accurate results may be obtained in (far) less time than would otherwise be the case. One can then implement more efficient algorithms for searching over different operating policies to determine the best operating policy, or at the very least one that is better than the existing policy.