Introduction

The Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) is a set of standards that specify how to couple simulation models built with various simulation software tools, or how to couple the simulation software themselves, to perform transient simulations of the coupled system. A simulation tool complying with these standards may act:

• as an exporting tool, creating components called Functional Mock-up Units (FMU) containing models or simulators for use by other simulation software, or
• as an importing tool, using FMUs generated by other simulation software.

The FMI standards define two kinds of interface:

• FMI for Model Exchange — a standardized way of interfacing a model with a simulation environment that provides at least a numerical solver.
• FMI for Co-simulation — deals with the coupling of simulators (each with its own numerical solver embedded in the FMU) through a master algorithm handling data exchange and synchronization between them.

Simcenter Amesim supports both importing third-party FMUs and exporting Amesim models as FMUs, for both Model Exchange and Co-simulation variants.