Mapping physical phenomena onto CA-models

Simulation of natural phenomena using CA-models attracts more and more attention of researchers and enters into practical use. However, the methodology of constructing CA-models for simulating certain natural process as well as analyzing simulation results, are not yet completely developed. The reason lays in a high level of CA-models abstraction which causes difficulties in establishing correspondence between CA parameters and physical values characterizing the process under simulation. In the paper an attempt is made to formulate general principles of constructing CA simulation models, and to show in detail their application to three types of CAs: diffusion CAs, Lattice-Gas CAs, and asynchronous probabilistic CAs. In all cases algorithms for scaling coefficients are developed and illustrated by Examples.