Industry 4.0, Internet of Simulations and Simware

SIMWARE SOLUTIONS S.L.
marketing@simware.es www.simware.es
The Industry 4.0, the Internet of the Simulations and
Simware

1 INTRODUCTION
Industry 4.0 is about the digital industry disruption in all kind of industries: big data and advanced
analytics, the Internet of Things, digital modeling, additive manufacturing, virtual reality, robotics
and artificial intelligence, intelligent sensors, cloud computing, software as a service, smartphones
and other mobile devices. Industry 4.0 embraces and combines all of them together to make a whole
that is vastly greater than the sum of the parts. Industry 4.0 embeds all these elements in an
interoperable global value chain, shared by many
companies from any country.
Industry 4.0 is dubbed the 4th industrial
revolution because of its huge impact in the way
companies will design new products,
manufacture them and support the products
when operated by their customers.
Modeling & Simulation technologies are already
key in the design, development and support of
new products. Model based system engineering
allows to design products faster, virtual
prototypes allow to reduce the number of physical
prototypes produced during the development of a
new product, virtual simulators allows also to
train operators and engineers in the operation
and maintenance of the products. But Industry
4.0 will disrupt also the way to use M&S,
increasing its use and value because under the
Industry 4.0 model, product design and
development take place in simulated laboratories
and utilize digital fabrication models. The
products themselves take tangible form only
after most of the design and engineering
problems have been worked out
This paper discusses the new requirements that Industry 4.0 is asking to M&S and how our
company, Simware Solutions, is responding to them with our Simware platform.
Adoption of Industry 4.0, by Sector

2 VALUE OF M&S IN THE INDUSTRY 4.0
Industry 4.0 promises to optimize the industrial
processes, allowing to design and build more
complex products, usually “smart” and connected,
faster and more efficiently. Industry 4.0 will not
only invent new products but also new services, as
mass customization, predictive maintenance,
online upgrade of products after they are sold (in
the same way that software has come to be
updated), etc.
Industry 4.0 will leverage networked production
systems to produce new generations of smart and
connected systems. Smart manufacturing
processes will be applied to the development of
smart systems, known also as cyber-physical
systems or CPS using the Internet of the Things
terminology1. A Smart system can be defined as a co-engineered interacting network of physical
and computational components.
A relevant part of this optimization will be achieved by adopting a design-centric workflow,
supported by digital product models, understanding as such a virtual model of the product
containing all the elements of mechanical, electrical, electronics and software and its virtual
interactions. Under the Industry 4.0 model, product design and development will take place in
simulated laboratories and utilize digital fabrication models. Only in this way companies will be
able to develop and upgrade smart products faster and at a competitive price to success in the
market.
Digital product models will enable the
Simulation based system engineering of
the smart product, covering the whole
life cycle:
 Validation of concept of
operations and requirements
 Virtual prototyping
 Testing
 Training
 Predictive maintenance
 Analysis of futures upgrades to
the product
1 To know more about CPS goes to https://www.nist.gov/el/cyber-physical-systems
Going faster to the market
The capability to perform virtual
prototyping and automation in
manufacturing industries is
critical as industries seek to reduce
the time moving through each
engineering phase
Experimentation
Virtual Design
Training & support
Predictive maintenance
Testing
Product Updates
Digital Model

3 THE INDUSTRY 4.0’S REQUIREMENTS FOR
SIMULATION
Industry 4.0 is dealing with the development and operation of smart systems, which are by
definition connected products, in which their capabilities are improved and optimized by other
products and services available in the network. Development of these products will be performed
by virtual supply chains, with networked engineering and productions systems.
The capability to leverage the network, achieving a seamless digital integration, will be key, both
for the design & manufacturing of the smart product and for its operation. In this context, if we
want to use Modeling & Simulation techniques to support the life cycle of the system, we will need
to work with Net-Centric and interoperable models and simulations. In the same way that the
physical product evolves to the Internet of the Things, its digital model will need to evolve to an
Internet of the Simulations, in which heterogeneous simulations of the diverse physical and cyber
subsystems of the smart product can
interoperate without restrictions.
But, till now, model based engineering and
virtual prototypes use to be supported by
simulation tools that are designed to work in
standalone configurations or, at most, with
point-to-point connections to other simulators.
Interoperability between simulations tools is
then very limited, reducing the capabilities of
the engineers to leverage the best features and
capabilities of several simulations tools in an
integrated solution. This is a problem when
you need to do concurrent engineering of a
smart system composed by different physical
and software components.
In a business context in which companies usually work in virtual supply chains, for example in
virtual integrated engineering teams to design a new product, simulation technologies must evolve
to work integrated across the boundaries of the companies. Here, open and interoperable net-
centric simulations are essential to provide to the engineering teams the capability to validate
requirements and designs in virtual worlds, composed by a combination of real equipment and
simulations from the different partners. An evolution of the simulation to the cloud, in order to use
the modeling & simulation as services (MSaaS concept) is requested to fulfill this objective.
Digital product models of the smart products will be required also to be integrated in training
solutions, that can be accessible to a large number of customers at the same time. This requirement
will change the traditional way to design a training device: as a standalone device located in a
training center. Training for the smart products will be provided as a service to the customer using
Internet or embedded in the smart product. Web-based training services and embedded trainers
will reuse the models and simulations of the product to provide an immersive training experience
to the users of the product, using virtual reality /Augmented Reality devices.
In a world of smart products, whose capabilities can be monitored and updated remotely,
simulation technologies will be also important to provide a better service to the customers during
the use of the product. For example, simulations can be used to predict future performances and
failures in an aircraft engine, based on actual data collected in real time, providing indicators for
a predictive maintenance of the connected product. Simulations can be also used to test new
features to include in a new version of the embedded software of a product line of appliances,
integrating a virtual prototype of the new feature in a synthetic scenario integrated with live
systems (real appliances already located at homes and in the test facilities of the manufacturer).
Again, the capability to leverage the network will be essential in this case.
Simulation in Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 demands an evolution of the M&S
technologies, doing imperative requirements that
nowadays are very uncommon in the industry:
 Open Simulations
 Net-Centric Simulations
 M&S as a Service
 Seamless interoperability
 Integration with the real product.

4 THE INTERNET OF SIMULATIONS
The Internet of simulations or IoS is the next revolution of modeling & simulation technologies.
IoS is about to embrace technologies as internet, distributed systems, open platforms, cloud
computing and service oriented architectures for the development and deployment of digital
models and simulations.
IoS is about the evolution of the simulation products and solutions from their proprietary and
stovepipe architectures, designed to work standalone, to Net-Centric, open and interoperable
solutions ready to connect and collaborate with smart systems.
IoS allows to deploy the models and simulations as services in the Cloud, enabling new business
models as M&S as a Service (MSaaS), Simulation Platforms as a Service (SPaaS) or Web based
Training (WBT). These new business models will expand the scope of application for simulations,
making them accessible to more people and organizations. Till now, even when costs for simulation
systems have decreased in this century, high-fidelity simulation is still expensive, difficult to
develop, operate and maintain, therefore only available for large organizations, as big
manufacturers for virtual prototyping, or airlines and military forces for virtual training.
IoS is a lever also for key industry 4.0 processes as collaborative design & development of new
products. IoS enables the design and development of new products in simulated laboratories and
utilizing digital fabrication models, making a reality the co-simulation concept. Co-simulation is
an approach for the joint simulation of models developed with different tools (tool coupling) where
each tool treats one part of a modular coupled problem. Hence, the modeling is done on the module
level without having the coupled problem in mind. Furthermore, the coupled simulation is carried
out by running the simulations in a black-box manner, as independent pieces of software
exchanging simulated data in a discrete way with the other models in the network. IoS enables the
integration of in-house software and hardware components with simulation services and platforms
provided by trading partners in a virtual supply chain (using MSaaS and SPaaS business models).
For example, a drone manufacturer could integrate a digital model of the drone in a virtual wind
tunnel, provided as a service by a specialized partner during the aerodynamic design of the
unmanned air platform.
IoS is also an enabler for specific smart systems’ business models as predictive maintenance or
embedded training:
 A car manufacturer can monitor the condition of the equipment in a connected car, collect
the data about the driving procedures and use this information to predict when the
maintenance should be performed. Predictions would be calculated using simulations
running a digital model of the car in remote servers.
 An embedded simulation could be added to the software of an aircraft. When maintenance
people connect to the computers in the aircraft, the embedded simulation will provide
training or recommendations to the support engineers.
Besides training and support to the engineering life cycle, IoS enables other applications as to use
the simulations as decision support tools to decide the best course of action in an emergency. For
example, a network of biosensors deployed in a smart city detect a pathogen and the authorities
must manage the outbreak of the pathogen event in a dense urban area. They will use simulations
to analyze the evolution of the event in the city, helping to plan the countering actions.

5 IMPLEMENTING IOS WITH SIMWARE
IoS requires a new "technology infrastructure", that allows to provide simulation services with a
hybrid deployment, combining some components onsite and others on the cloud. Our Simware
platform is the leading networked technological infrastructure for IoS. It is providing the
mechanisms to connect the simulators to the network and to share data between the publishers
and subscribers or consumers of the data. Simware provides a data-centric architecture to enable
the co-simulation concept, connecting heterogeneous simulations from different tools in a common
simulation data-space.
Simware platform is based on a microservices architecture, named Layered Simulation
Architecture or LSA. LSA is the first microservices architecture for simulation, specifically
designed to support the development of real time and Net-Centric simulation products. As any
other microservices architecture, LSA allows to decompose the simulation product into small and
easily manageable components. Microservices are called Entities in Simware and interoperate
with other entities by exchanging data through a distributed simulation runtime infrastructure,
that is working as the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) of the simulation product. Service based
architecture in Simware platform allows to separate the Intellectual property (IP) from the
interface: entities in Simware are black-boxes that exchange data without exposing the proprietary
IP to the network. This is a very important feature to build trust in virtual supply chains, for
example when working in collaboration for the design of a new product.

Simware is both a dev framework and an integration platform. As a development platform,
Simware provides a loosely coupled architecture2, composed by multiple layers that can be used
alone or in collaboration, depending on the project’s requirements. Simware layers provided
everything you need to develop real time Net-Centric simulations that can be deployed on
simulation servers or in dedicated simulation facilities. Simware tools and APIs allow to build any
kind of simulation entity in compliance with the best practices in Agile software and system
engineering as set-based design, model-driven development, test-driven development, continuous
integration/delivery, DevOps, etc. You can know more about the unique features of Simware as an
Agile development platform at http://www.simware.es/agile-simware.html
As an integration platform, Simware platform integrates heterogeneous components, both
simulated and real, very easily, allowing the design and development of new products in simulated
laboratories. System engineers can use Simware to integrate all kind of COTS, legacy and partner’s
software using Simware’s open APIs and its compliance with the main standards in the market.
Simware is already compliant with many industrial standards, already common in simulation and
IoT industry (take a look to the full list at http://www.simware.es/simware--standards.html ) and
it is easy to integrate almost any component using the tools and APIs in Simware.
2 To know more about Simware architecture,

6 USE CASES
Simware platform supports the whole life cycle of the system engineering of any smart product.
Simware is useful from the conception to the retirement of the product:
Read below how Simware can be useful to many key processes in the life cycle of a complex smart
product, as:
- Experimentation of concepts and requirements
- Design & testing of the product
- Training
- Support and maintenance.
You can visit also our website to know more about specific Industry 4.0 applications for Simware:
http://www.simware.es/markets.html

6.1 EXPERIMENTATION.
Simware can be used to experiment with new concepts, systems and procedures. Simware enables
the development of synthetic environments that can be integrated in real scenarios, to interoperate
with live systems. In this way, engineers and designers can experiment with new concepts of
operations and technologies for new or existing products in a safe and secure environment.
One example is to use digital models of cities and driverless cars to experiment with the integration
of driverless cars in the city’s traffic. Simware can be used to integrate a complex simulation
composed by simulations of the autonomous car, traffic, pedestrians, traffic lights, man in the loop
simulators, etc. Live systems could be also integrated to the simulation network, as a live car
getting simulated data in an augmented reality device or a network of smart sensors feeding real
time information about the traffic conditions to the traffic simulator. Simware data-centric
architecture is especially designed to this kind of solution, where many heterogeneous components,
live and simulated, must interoperate in a common virtual space.
This complex simulated laboratory could be used to experiment with new AI technologies for
autonomous vehicles, using a mixed scenario of real and simulated traffic to test the performance
of the new algorithms in real traffic conditions. This laboratory could be also used to experiment
with new procedures to optimize the flow of traffic in the cities, for example by managing traffic-
lights based on real time conditions in the streets.

6.2 VIRTUAL DESIGN
Simware supports the co-simulation concept, enabling the collaborative design of new products in
a digital laboratory, using virtual prototyping techniques. Our Net-centric simulation
infrastructure allows the collaborative development of integrated digital models, working with
virtual prototypes of the new product in a shared simulated environment. Open interfaces allow to
integrate all kind of simulation tools, 3D and simulation engines and virtual reality devices in a
common simulation domain. Data-Centric architecture enables the easy integration of all kind of
simulations with real components and embedded software, without exposing IP, only sharing
simulation data in a common simulation cloud.

6.3 TESTING
Testing of industrial products demands the integration of heterogeneous simulations with
hardware components, part of the configuration of the real product. Simware platform is very well
suited to this kind of applications, because of its capability to abstract from the actual
implementation of the different components through its data-centric and middleware based
architecture. A common simulation infrastructure allows to integrate easily simulated and
operational components in a simulation-based test-site, enabling both hardware in the loop (HIL)
simulation and Man in the Loop Simulation.
As an example, you can find here how Simware can be used to implement a test-site for the
development of a transmission control system, as this shown in the figure3.
Test-site is developed as a simulation solution composed by the integration of several tools:
 Engine and transmission modeled in Simulink
 Transmission control unit prototype of the real component
 Vehicle dynamics using a 3D racing car simulator.
 Simware as simulation platform.
 Driver cockpit running on web browser
In this solution, Simware is the “glue” of the test-bench, providing a common Net-Centric
simulation infrastructure in which several simulations can exchange simulation data in a
synchronized way. Simulations could be running on the same laboratory or in a distributed
environment, with several simulation running from remote servers.
3 Example included in proceedings paper, Mckee, DW, Webster D, Xu, J, Battersby,D. Divider: Modelling and Evaluating Real-Time service-
oriented cyberphysical co-simulations. 2015 IEEE 18th International Symposium on Real-Time Distributed Computing.

6.4 TRAINING
Simware extends the applicability of simulation based training to new products and business
models. Simware is both useful to improve the actual training devices and to develop new products
and services for training:
- Simulator manufacturers can leverage Simware platform to develop in an agile way the
traditional training devices, from procedures trainers to high fidelity simulators, going
faster to the market and increasing its productivity. Besides to increase in-house
productivity, manufacturers can leverage Simware to improve the collaboration with their
virtual supply chain, using the simulation as services (MSaaS) or using the platform as a
service (SPaaS), to build the training device as a “lego”. Any simulator manufacturer,
regardless of her size, can leverage Simware to develop a simulator as the integration of
heterogeneous simulations provided by partners, therefore enabling the collaborative
design and development of any kind of training device.
- Companies can leverage our simulation infrastructure to deploy their training devices in a
hybrid deployment, with some simulation capabilities deployed on the simulator’s
manufacturer and some other located in a dedicated training center, managed by a training
services provider
- Companies can deploy web-based trainers using the net-centric capabilities embedded in
Simware platform.
- A smart product manufacturer can provide embedded training features in her products
only by integrating a simulation component provided by a sim manufacturer into her
product.
As an example, Simware can be used to deploy a simulator as a smart product, with a hybrid
deployment, composed by some components located on the premises of the training provider and
others located in the manufacturer’s facilities. This hybrid deployment makes easier the
maintenance and support of the simulator,
providing a better level of support to the
customer, using techniques as condition based
support or predictive maintenance.
This smart simulator would be also connected to
external apps to increase their capabilities, for
example by adding real time weather
information to its exercises or to connect with
other training devices to train as a team,
emulating real conditions.

6.5 SUPPORT TO THE DEPLOYMENT
Once the smart product has been deployed, Simware is useful to develop tools and applications
that support the operation of the product:
- Augmented reality apps can be developed to support technicians doing the maintenance of
the product. Simware supports the development of web and mobile apps that can be
connected to simulation servers in the cloud or to simulations embedded in the product.
These simulations, running digital models of the product and its components, will support
the technician during his maintenance tasks, providing recommendations and
troubleshooting guides.
- A car manufacturer can use Simware platform to provide the simulation component on a
predictive maintenance application. This app will monitor the condition of the equipment
in a connected car, collecting the data about the driving procedures and analyzing this
information along with the information about various components of the vehicle from
suppliers and other users to predict when the maintenance should be performed.
Predictions would be calculated using simulations running a digital model of the car and
its components in remote servers. Any company can leverage open APIs and standard-
based interfaces in Simware to connect to the main Industrial IoT platforms in the market
to provide this kind of integrated solution, in which Simware based simulations provide a
prediction of the future health of the system based on actual patterns of use in the
customer.

7 SUMMARY
Modeling & Simulation (M&S) technologies and platforms must evolve in order to meet the new
requirements requested by Industry 4.0. In the same way that the industry embraces the IoT
concepts, both in their life cycle processes and the products and services they provide to the
customers, support technologies as is M&S must evolve to the network, embracing the new concept
of the Internet of the Simulations or IoS. IoS is about the evolution of the simulation products and
solutions from their proprietary and stovepipe architectures, designed to work standalone, to Net-
Centric, open and interoperable solutions ready to connect and collaborate with smart systems.
IoS allows to deploy the models and simulations as services in the Cloud, enabling new business
models as M&S as a Service (MSaaS), Simulation Platforms as a Service (SPaaS) or Web based
Training (WBT). IoS is a lever for many key processes in the engineering life cycle of a smart
product, from its conception to its deployment, enabling important improvements in productivity,
collaboration and lead times.
IoS requires a new "technology infrastructure", that allows to provide simulation services with a
hybrid deployment, combining some components onsite and others on the cloud. Our Simware
platform is the leading networked technological infrastructure for IoS. It is providing the
mechanisms to connect the simulators to the network and to share data between the publishers
and subscribers or consumers of the data. Simware is the first and only microservices architecture
for simulation in the market, specifically designed to support the development of real time and
Net-Centric simulation products as the integration of many small and easily manageable
components.
Simware platform is useful both as a development technical framework and as an integration and
deployment infrastructure. Simware is an agile and flexible set of tools, libraries and APIs that
supports the whole life cycle of the system engineering of any smart product : from its conception
to its retirement.
8 ABOUT SIMWARE SOLUTIONS
Simware Solutions is leading the introduction of Open platforms into the Simulation & Training
markets. Our platform Simware leverages the new Layered Simulation Architecture or LSA to
fulfill the requirements of the lead users of the industry, which are demanding open architectures,
better interoperability and increasing economical returns for their investments in simulation and
training solutions.
Our platform is the first commercial product in the market supporting the Internet of Simulation
concept. IoS is about to embrace technologies as internet, distributed systems, open platforms,
cloud computing and service oriented architectures for the development and deployment of open,
net-centric and interoperable simulations
Simware is the only simulation platform in the market supporting Net-Centric simulation without
restrictions, enabling new business models for simulation as the use of simulation as a Service
(MSaaS) or the use of simulation platforms as a service (SPaaS).
Our whole portfolio is only based on open standards and APIs, enabling the seamless connectivity
and interoperability with almost any other product and solution in the market.

Industry 4.0, Internet of Simulations and Simware

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Industry 4.0, Internet of Simulations and Simware (20)

More from Simware (14)

Recently uploaded (20)

Industry 4.0, Internet of Simulations and Simware