ACOSAR

Project results

In the ACOSAR project, 16 partners came together under the lead of Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH in order to accelerate development steps with new simulation technologies. With a strong focus on the automotive domain, the consortium’s members operated on all levels of the automotive supply chain and included original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, software tool and real-time system vendors, as well as research and academic partners.

Early predictions and correspondingly early design decisions are key success factors in modern development processes. With the aid of co-simulation, diverse simulation models can be linked together to enable overall system analysis at a very early stage of development (‘front loading’). Within the virtual system development, front loading is getting more and more important in a plenitude of industrial domains to reduce development times, stranded costs and timeto- market. Co-simulation is a particularly promising approach for interoperable modular development. However, the coupling and integration of real-time systems into simulation environments (especially of systems of distributed Hardwarein- the-Loop (HiL) systems and simulations) still require enormous effort. ACOSAR developed both a non-proprietary ‘Distributed Co-simulation Protocol’ (DCP) for Real-Time (RT) System integration and a corresponding integration methodology, which is a substantial contribution to the international standardisation (Modelica Association Project DCP - MAP DCP).

The DCP is an application level communication protocol. It is designed to integrate models and real-time systems into simulation environments. It enables the exchange of simulation-related configuration information and data by use of an underlying transport protocol (such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), or CAN). At the same time, the DCP supports the integration of tools and real-time systems from different vendors.

Exploitation

Transfer of results into standardisation was one of the key goals of ACOSAR. In the final year of the project, the consortium members therefore decided to pursue standardisation of the DCP with the Modelica Association. Since July 2018, the DCP has been developed as a Modelica Association Project (MAP). The DCP specification document 1.0 was released in March 2019, as an open-access Modelica Association standard. The DCP complements an existing set of standards for system simulation, including the Modelica Language, the Functional Mock-Up Interface (FMI), and the System Structure and Parameterisation (SSP) standard.

For project coordinator Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH, the success of the project was another milestone in its 15 years of experience in the field of simulation technologies. This focus on industry-related research makes Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH the innovation catalyst for future vehicle technologies. In addition, ESI Group implements DCP for its system simulation solutions. ESI expects to significantly increase the interoperability of its tools and a reduction of development and maintenance costs due to the replacement of several tool specific co-simulation modules by the standardised and tool-independent DCP.

The range of applications is wide and can, for example, reduce the set-up and configuration time. Further applications gaining benefit from the DCP are typically found in the fields of distributed simulation, co-simulation, hardware-, software-, or model-in-the- loop testing, and process automation. The results of ACOSAR will lead to a modular, considerably more flexible and shorter system development process for numerous industrial domains as well as enable the establishment of new business models.