Teamoriented, Designfocused Simulation Tools: Massively Multiplayer Games in the Engineering Workpla

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Team-oriented, Design-focused Simulation
ToolsMassively Multiplayer Games in the
Engineering Workplace !?orThe Google Earth
version of an Engineering Simulator ?
Presented at SCS Summer Simulation
MulticonferenceJuly 17, 2007 San Diego, CA

• Roger A. Dougal
• Dept of Electrical Engineering
• University of South Carolina

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The Ten Words

• View-centric
• Multiplayer
• Hardware-interactive
• Management-aware
• Poly-lingual
• Service-oriented
• Multi-, multi-, multi-
• Uncertain
• Delimitative
• Produceable
• Mind-amplifying

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View-centric
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View-centric
Our conference hotel
Somewhere in Colorado
You can see the details
You KNOW that you cant see the details
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View-centric
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Multiplayer
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Hardware-interactive
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Management-aware
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Poly-lingual
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Simulation Services
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Multi-player Multi-resolution
Multi-rate Multi-lingual
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Delimitative
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Uncertain
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Produce-able
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Mind-Amplifying
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Summary of the Challenges

• What is the correct model resolution on the
  periphery of the focus?
• How do I smoothly and dynamically switch model
  resolution?
• At each increasing level of resolution how do I
  initialization the larger system model at the
  current operating point?
• What methods and structures should I use to
  organize refinement of a system across
  disciplines maintaining (or creating new)
  interconnects at the various resolutions
• How do still-uncertain parts of the system
  interact with well-defined parts of the system?

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Summary of the Challenges

• What form of interaction with the simulation is
  interpreted by the simulator as a request for
  more-or-less resolution? (Spatial zooms might not
  be everything!)
• How do I estimate uncertainty at every point in
  the system, when the uncertainty may be dynamic,
  and a cumulative result of many incremental
  uncertainties?
• What is the graphical means or algorithm by which
  I represent uncertainty?
• How do I deal with uncertainties in discrete
  event?
• In a many-user system model, how do I keep
  abreast of changes that significantly affect my
  parts of the system, without being overwhelmed by
  changes that dont?

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Summary of the Challenges

• If another user wants to add an interaction point
  with my part of the system, how is that
  negotiated? Through how many levels of detail
  must it be propagated?
• How do I capture requirements for interface
  standards within the simulation models?
• At what level are controls broken out from
  idealized models that wrap up control with the
  hardware?
• How do I understand the basic outer limits of
  system performance before Ive designed the
  controls?
• Who is going to develop all of the generic
  power interfaces to all of the rest of the
  physical world? Is it possible to define generic
  interfaces? Or are they all application specific?

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Summary of the Challenges

• How does the system simulation wrap up
  administrative details like project decomposition
  and compartmentalization?
• How often should the comprehensive simulation
  model be run and monitored by all of the involved
  parties to be sure that the system design has not
  strayed off-course?
• Can an engineering simulator be a training device
  for future engineers?
• How do I bracket acceptable performance of the
  system, so that I know that the as-built system
  is sufficiently close to the system model that
  specifies the system?
• Is it possible for a simulation model to specify
  a system at a high level, without restricting
  implementation options?

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Summary of the Challenges

• How do I propagate uncertainty through discrete
  events?
• Do I have to represent uncertainty in every
  single component?
• Will it be possible some day to turn over a
  simulation model of a ship to a digital factory
  that will then produce the ship without human
  intervention?
• How do we most-effectively capture human thoughts
  in the design and simulation process and use
  those human thoughts to guide the design in the
  most appropriate ways?

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Summary of the Challenges

• What are YOUR challenges?