Automatic partitioning and simulation of weakly coupled systems

Many control engineering tasks nowadays rely on the simulation of complex multi-physics systems. Modern tools allow to build the required dynamic models conveniently, thanks to Object-Oriented Modelling languages, e.g., Modelica, and to perform simulations with hardly any additional effort on the part of the analyst. However, when simulation speed is of concern, the same tools fall short of exploiting some useful properties of the model, namely - to focus on the subject of this work - the possibility of partitioning said model in “weakly” coupled submodels. This work proposes an automatic method to perform a structural analysis aimed at identifying weak couplings in the system, providing the information needed for the mentioned partition. This information is here used to feed a mixed-mode integration method, leading to a significant improvement in terms of simulation speed.