SGER: Simulation Modeling of Systems With Complex Entity Interactions

该探索性研究小额赠款（SGER）为涉及复杂实体交互的离散事件仿真模型的分类和使用商业仿真软件包开发几个样本模型提供资金。 复杂交互是指实体流和资源行为高度依赖于系统状态的交互。 这些系统的仿真模型的特点是有许多“用户定义”的实体等待状态。 在这些模型中，资源不能是简单的被动的容量维护机制，而是必须实现特定的分配逻辑。 属于此类的看似简单的模型数量惊人。 这类系统将被描述和记录，并为这类问题开发建模方法。 此外，还将开发一套问题测试程序，并将使用几种商业上可获得的模拟软件包开发这些问题的模型。 这些模型将相互比较，并与手工编码的面向事件的模型相同systems.If成功的，本研究的结果将提供开发离散事件仿真模型的一类系统，涉及复杂的实体相互作用沿着与一套示例模型在几个商业上可用的仿真包。 这项研究的长期目标是开发一个开源的仿真工具包，专门支持复杂系统模型的开发。 其结果将是一个免费提供的模拟软件包沿着重要的教育材料。 请注意，该工具包的目标不是与商业仿真软件包竞争，而是对它们进行补充，并提供支持教学和理解通用仿真原理的工具。 实际上，提高对一般仿真原理的理解将通过增加仿真项目的成功概率而使商业软件包受益。

This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) provides funding for the classification of discrete-event simulation models involving complex entity interaction and the development of several sample models using commercial simulation packages. Complex interactions are those in which the flow of the entities and the behavior of the resources are highly dependent on the system state. Simulation models of these systems are characterized by having numerous "user-defined" wait states for entities. In these models, resources can not be simply passive capacity maintenance mechanisms, but rather they must implement specific allocation logic. There are a surprising number of seemingly straightforward models that belong to this class. This class of systems will be characterized and documented and modeling methodologies for problems is this class will be developed. In addition, a test suite of problems will be developed and models for these problems will be developed using several commercially available simulation software packages. These models will be compared with each other and with hand-coded event-oriented models of the same systems.If successful, the results of this research will provide methodologies for developing discrete-event simulation models of a class of systems involving complex entity interactions along with a suite of example models implemented in several commercially available simulation packages. The long-term goal of this research is to develop an open-source simulation toolkit to specifically support the development of models for complex systems. The result will be a freely available simulation software package along with significant educational materials. Note that the goal of the toolkit is not to compete with the commercial simulation packages, but, rather, to supplement them and to provide tools to support the teaching and understanding of general simulation principles. Actually, improving the understanding of general simulation principles will benefit the commercial packages by increasing the probability of success for simulation projects.