Looking glass: a hybrid simulation system to model cascading events within a black box system

• US 8,660,828 B2
• Filed: 10/03/2011
• Issued: 02/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Booch, Ernest G., Coden, Anni R., Levine, David W., Tanenblatt, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Thangavelu, Kandasamy
• Application Number:
  US13/251,892
• Publication Number:
  US 20130085739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 876 Days
• Field of Search: 703/6, 703/13, 703/14, 706/12, 600/365, 705/35, 702/183, 702/186
• US Class Current: 703/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30

Abstract

A hybrid simulation system to model cascading events within a black box system may include a tessellated field operable to allow a plurality of black box components to execute on a processor and communicate without needing a direct connection between the black box components. The black box components have transfer functions defined over a common coordinate system and time.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of modeling cascading events within a black box system, comprising:

receiving, using a computer, a scenario description, the scenario description including coordinates of the black box system, specification of a plurality of black box components associated with the black box system;

building, using the computer, a tessellated field associated with the black box system based on the received scenario description, the tessellated field representing coordinates for the black box system;

running, using the computer, a simulation scenario by executing the plurality of black box components over a simulation time period, the black box components having transfer functions defined over a common coordinate system and time, the black box components communicating only through the tessellated field without needing a direct connection between the black box components; and

updating, using the computer, the tessellated field with results of the simulation.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

generating visualization and statistical data based on the updated tessellated field, wherein the generated visualization and statistical data is transmitted to a graphical user interface module for presentation to a user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the tessellated field is updated over the simulation time period and wherein one or more of the black box components are executed using the updated tessellated field over the simulation time period.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the tessellated field is updated in accordance with output generated by the plurality of black box components over the simulation time period.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the tessellated field is updated in accordance with one or more user generated actions during the simulation.

6. A computer implemented method of modeling cascading events within a black box system, comprising:

receiving, using a computer, a scenario description;

configuring, using the computer, a tessellated field representing coordinates of the black box system based on the scenario description and specifications of a plurality of black box components associated with the black box system; and

running, using the computer, a simulation scenario by executing the plurality of black box components, the black box components having transfer functions defined over a common coordinate system and time, the black box components communicating only through the tessellated field without needing a direct connection between the black box components, the running a simulation scenario comprising at least,

initializing a clock to time T;

retrieving data available from one or more of the plurality of black box components;

resolving conflict, if any, in the received data;

storing the data in the tessellated field;

performing one or more analytic functions, if any, associated with the one or more of the plurality of black box components from which the data is retrieved;

updating the tessellated field with one or more results of the performed one or more analytic functions;

applying one or more rules associated with the one or more of the plurality of black box components from which the data is retrieved;

updating the tessellated field with one or more results of the applying of the one or more rules;

executing one or more user actions, if any, received from a user via a computer user interface module;

updating the tessellated field with one or more results of the executing of the one or more user actions;

incrementing time T by a time unit; and

repeating the steps of retrieving, resolving, storing, performing, updating, applying, updating, executing, updating and incrementing until simulation is ended.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the tessellated field is multidimensional spatial coordinate representation of the scenario being simulated, the tessellated field including a plurality of tessellations, each of the plurality of the tessellations representing a part of the spatial coordinate covered by the tessellated field, wherein one or more of the tessellations are associated with a multidimensional geographical map, one or more black box components, or combinations thereof.

8. The method of claim 7, further including:

generating a visualization and statistical data associated with the updated tessellated field, wherein the visualization is presented via the computer user interface module.