Characteristics of Signal Buses

Signal bus

Signal buses accomplish this by allowing users to combine into a single container several types of objects:

• Scalars, i.e. straightforward standard variables.

• Vectors, or variables of dimension larger than 1.

• Groups of scalars, i.e. sets of N variables of dimension 1.

• Combinations of the above two objects (groups of vectors: N sets of variables of dimension M).

• Other buses, i.e. it is possible to create nested buses (of arbitrary depth) to represent a hierarchical data structure if needed.

Figure 403: Different types of variables can be combined into a signal bus

A bus can be considered as a way of bundling together various types of signals originating from different points in the system.

Warning

This feature represents ideal buses. There is no modeling of hardware or electronic buses, meaning that no transmission lags or pack collisions are simulated when these buses are used in a sketch.

Another key characteristic of signal buses is that they rely on text-based signal identifiers for routing. This means that users have the ability to associate a unicode text identifier with a signal and track it along its path through the model, eventually extracting it by explicitly identifying it at the extraction point. As a result, it is easy to know exactly which variable is being extracted at any given time, and to make changes to the lists of extracted variables where needed.

Note

A bus signal can originate from a single, unique point, but can be extracted as many times as the user wishes.