H Simulations in the Netherlands. "Corporations now want to use it in an operational en
vironment."
While simulation technology has been a mainstream engineering and analysis tool for years, fully object-oriented simulation environments represent the
next generation
of simulation systems. Object-oriented simulation provides rapid modeling, hierarchical models, and an "engine" to drive entire enterprise-wide solutions.
F&H's new Taylor Enterprise Dynamics (ED) product suite includes a discrete engine for flow modeling, simulation, visualization, and process control. With Taylor ED, developers can build models out of basic objects, called atoms. Their spatial coordinates and speed characterize atoms, and their superposition constitutes the dynamic behavior of a simulation model. They can be nested for complex object construction and can inherit properties from other atoms. Programmers can access atoms from any C++ development environment or use a scripting language to assemble atoms.
Dick Hillen, technical director of F&H, sees Taylo
r ED Developer version as a platform for a whole range of vertical-market solutions that may even integrate with real-time applications such as production control. The first vertical applications include the manufacturing and material-handling systems 4D Factory and 4D Motion. Later this year, F&H plans to release additional applications for scheduling and work-flow management applications.
Aesop's Simple++ is another discrete simulation platform for modeling and visualizing industrial and business processes. It's based on an object-oriented programming (OOP) environment that lets developers visually choose physical objects such as transporters or buffers and objects such as triggers or generators to build models. It's possible to build complete simulations without writing any code, though a scripting language does help to build complex systems.
The next version, 5.0, slated for an April release, separates the simulation engine from the viewing mechanism, so that you can, for example, view sim
ulations within your preferred CAD system. Another important feature of Simple++5.0 is an interface to enterprise software such as SAPR/3. These integration capabilities enable a manufacturing resource planning (MRP) system to directly activate a Simple++ function for data import or export. Says Constantin Schaible, marketing manager of Aesop, "The new concept aims at extending the value and lifetime of models across the complete production cycle."
In contrast to Taylor ED and Simple++, Silux AG's
Silux
is a continuous simulation system for mechanical systems including complex multibody mechanics. It is based on a finite difference algorithm that allows for the exact simulation of nonstationary mechanics such as crash behavior of bodies or the mechanical stress on a loaded robot arm.
Silux is impressively easy to use. "A Silux user works in a space that already 'knows' the complete physical behavior of an object. All you have to do is visually assemble the objects and define
the external conditions," says Fritz Leibundgut, Silux AG's chief technology officer.
New simulation systems for virtual prototyping from companies such as Emultek and Tecoplan aim to reduce the development cycle of products. Emultek's Rapid+, for example, simulates the look and behavior of electronic devices, automatically generating user-interface (UI) specifications, documentation, and test scripts.
In addition, it generates C or C++ code for the UI logic that developers can directly embed in the real systems. With APIs to most microcontrollers and real-time OSes, automatic generation of code, test scripts, and documentation can shorten development time significantly. An early user at Bosch-Siemens in Germany reports that Rapid+ helped reduce development cycles from three years down to six months.
Tecoplan's digital mock-up software Virtual Workshop 4.0, expected to be released in a Windows NT and Unix version in May, features improvements in collocation and collision-detection facilities
. It also includes a new space-mapping technology that allows for spatial queries in standard CAD databases. According to Thomas Koytek, managing director of Tecoplan, the new version also supports concurrent engineering in globally dispersed teams over extranets.
Better Simulation Software
