Simulation Structure for Heterogeneous Environments

This paper addresses a common issue in producing desktop simulations for production environments in which the most current version of the algorithm is available only in the form of the production code. The part of the system we are interested in is often called performance software (for example, slip control systems, transmission control, and engine control). From a control algorithm design perspective the ideal environment is a reference model in a high level language, which supports code generation. The complete environment would support templatized code generation so that the fixed-point code for the embedded controller can be generated directly. Many organizations have a significant investment in legacy C code, and the cost of remodeling the entire system may be unacceptably high (at least in the short term). In such an environment simulation tools are often underused because of the impression that the entire system must be remodeled. A further complication is that producing the entire simulation is usually assigned to the control or modeling community, which is often separate from the group that maintains the production code. Our simulation environment can be easily mapped to a variety of organization structures, and allows for incremental updating and low cost simulation of production or near production software.