Integrating Discrete-Event and Time-Based Models with Optimization for Resource Allocation

Optimization’s importance for technical systems’ performance can hardly be overstated. Even small improvements can result in substantial cost, resources, and time savings. A constructive approach to dynamic system optimization can formalize the optimization problem in a mathematical sense. The complexity of modern systems, however, often prohibits such formalization, especially when different modeling paradigms interact. Phenomena such as parasitic effects present additional complexity. This work employs a generative approach to optimization, where computational simulation of the problem space is combined with a computational optimization approach in the solution space. To address the multiparadigm nature, simulation relies on a unifying semantic domain in the form of an abstract execution framework that can be made concrete. Because of the flexibility of the computational infrastructure, a highly configurable integrated environment is made available to the optimization expert. The overall approach is illustrated with a resource allocation problem, which combines continuous-time, discrete-event, and state-transition systems.

This paper was published in the 2012 Winter Simulation Conference proceedings.

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