Parallel and distributed computing models on a graphics processing unit to accelerate simulation of membrane systems

Membrane systems are parallel distributed computing models that are used in a wide variety of areas. Use of a sequential machine to simulate membrane systems loses the advantage of parallelism in Membrane Computing. In this paper, an innovative classification algorithm based on a weighted network is introduced. Two new algorithms have been proposed for simulating membrane systems models on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Communication and synchronization between threads and thread blocks in a GPU are time-consuming processes. In previous studies, dependent objects were assigned to different threads. This increases the need for communication between threads, and as a result, performance decreases. In previous studies, dependent membranes have also been assigned to different thread blocks, requiring inter-block communications and decreasing performance. The speedup of the proposed algorithm on a GPU that classifies dependent objects using a sequential approach, for example with 512 objects per membrane, was 82×, while for the previous approach (Algorithm 1), it was 8.2×. For a membrane system with high dependency among membranes, the speedup of the second proposed algorithm (Algorithm 3) was 12×, while for the previous approach (Algorithm 1) and the first proposed algorithm (Algorithm 2) that assign each membrane to one thread block, it was 1.8×.