A novel simulation framework for supporting real-time cyber-physical interactions

Simulation methods are widely used when designing complex systems to reduce the development effort and cost. Especially when designing cyber-physical systems (CPSs), the importance of the simulation grows bigger and bigger. To simulate CPSs precisely, a holistic simulator is needed considering cyber and physical systems as a whole. In this paper, we clarify the limitations of the existing simulation techniques and tools when used as CPS simulators: (1) unable to reflect the realtime behavior of the system, (2) do not support interactions with external environments. To overcome these limitations, we specifically propose a two-level simulation architecture and an artificial delay concept. Then, we also address the issues to be considered when the simulator is running on a multi-core system. To apply our proposed technique with concrete application scenarios, we introduce our simulation framework targeting an automotive system simulator.