Distributed Heterogeneous Simulation, a New Paradigm for Simulating Integrated Naval Power Systems

A new paradigm for simulating large-scale dynamical systems is described and applied to an integrated naval power system. This approach enables the overall system simulation to be formed as an interconnection of interdependent dynamic simulations, each representing a specific electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, and/or thermal component/subsystem. Each simulation may be developed independently using possibly different commercial off-the-shelf simulation programs thereby allowing the most suitable language or tool to be used based on the design/analysis needs. The proposed simulation paradigm is applied to an advanced naval electric power system that includes a zonal dc electric distribution system and an integrated electric generation and propulsion system. The composite system simulation is implemented on a three-computer network of personal computers by interconnecting simulations of the constituent subsystems. It is shown that significant improvements in computational speed are achieved using this approach. Key-Words: Distributed Heterogeneous Simulation, Integrated Naval Power Systems, Parallel Computing