A Data Management Framework Providing Online-Connectivity In Symbiotic Simulation

Symbiotic simulation in industrial applications requires efficient connectivity between industrial processes and embedded legacy simulators. One main challenge is to handle heterogeneous system parameters like bandwidth, latency, redundancy, security and data representation. Moreover, data management needs to be improved in terms of unified access providing an interface to online, historical and corresponding simulation data. This paper proposes a framework for symbiotic simulation addressing the problem of connectivity. We introduce the Process Data Streaming Protocol (PDSP) managing distributed process data flows. Additionally we present PDSP based modules covering different modes of operation for data processing. The Framework interacts with distributed control systems via object linking and embedding for process control as well as to embedded systems using different hierarchic operation modes. Historical data can be provided transparently through an integrated stream-database. The framework is primarily optimized to be used in JAVA-based simulation environments, but is not limited to these. Finally we demonstrate the usability of the system while interacting with a simulation environment for a hybrid process and present some experimental results.