An Object-oriented Multimodel Design for Integrating Simulation and Planning Tasks

Object oriented simulation methods have promoted a structured way of building models based on the mapping between physical objects and the logical objects. Dynamics within the traditional object oriented framework is presented in the form of nite state machines embedded within data ow functions. That is, as data and control ow within a data ow graph, the dynamics are represented by internal state changes. While this paradigm is powerful, we present an extension to the object oriented approach to simulation and planning by allowing model components to be de ned in terms of di erent model types. This extension supports the idea that di erent parts of a model are dened di erently depending on the level of abstraction. Our extension to the object oriented paradigm is described with a truck depot example that demonstrates how reactive control and deliberative planning are integrated within a multimodel framework. We found that the multimodel method is powerful for system simulation and planning when employed within an object-oriented infrastructure. [