Early Insights on FMI-based Co-Simulation of Aircraft Vehicle Systems

Abstract

Modelling and Simulation is extensively used for aircraft vehicle system development at Saab Aeronautics in Linköping, Sweden. There is an increased desire to simulate interacting sub-systems together in order to reveal, and get an understanding of, the present cross-coupling effects early on in the development cycle of aircraft vehicle systems. The co-simulation methods implemented at Saab require a significant amount of manual effort, resulting in scarcely updated simulation models, and challenges associated with simulation model scalability, etc. The Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard is identified as a possible enabler for efficient and standardized export and co-simulation of simulation models developed in a wide variety of tools. However, the ability to export industrially relevant models in a standardized way is merely the first step in simulating the targeted coupled sub-systems. Selecting a platform for efficient simulation of the system under investigation is the next step. Here, a strategy for adapting coupled Modelica models of aircraft vehicle systems to TLM-based simulation is presented. An industry-grade application example is developed, implementing this strategy, to be used for preliminary investigation and evaluation of a cosimulation framework supporting the Transmission Line element Method (TLM). This application example comprises a prototype of a small-scale aircraft vehicle systems simulator. Examples of aircraft vehicle systems are environmental control systems, fuel systems, and hydraulic systems. The tightly coupled models included in the application example are developed in Dymola, OpenModelica, and Matlab/Simulink. The application example is implemented in the commercial modelling tool Dymola to provide a reference for a TLM-based master simulation tool, supporting both FMI and TLM. The TLM-based master simulation tool TLMSimulator is investigated in terms of model import according to the FMI standard with respect to a specified set of industrial needs and requirements.