Controlling Simcenter Amesim with Automation Connect

After you have selected a Co-Simulation DLL, the tool will automatically connect to Simcenter Amesim and list all defined interface-variables. AllSimcenter Amesim variables are per definition of type Double (Or LREAL), whereas Automation Connect adds five additional (virtual) variables: two inputs Toggle start/Toggle stop to start/stop the simulation, and three outputs Simulation time, Start toggled and Remaining Buffer. The former displays the current Simcenter Amesim simulation time since simulation start, the latter displays the time difference between the desired timestep and the solver time. Therefore this value can be used as are performance indicator to check if your model can keep up with the wall-clock time.

Note that the tool acts as a (co-)simulation (and time) master and Simcenter Amesim as a slave, so you can control the Simcenter Amesim simulation with the Automation Connect tool. You then need to define a maximum simulation time and manually start the simulation. This can be done using the Start / Stop button in the Simcenter Amesim tab (see figure Figure 6).

While running a simulation, you can interact with your model by reading output variables or writing input variables. To do this, select the Value cell of the input-variable concerned, enter a new value and confirm your input by pressing ENTER. (Boolean variables also accept 0 for false and 1 for true, as well as a mouse double-click to invert the value).

Note

In addition to your defined interface block variables the tool always adds one more input-variable Toggle start and two more outputs Simulation time and Start toggled. Those can be used to automatically start the Simcenter Amesim simulation by an output from another system. Furthermore it allows a programmed feedback regarding the state of the simulation and the wall-clock-time synchronizeability.