Convergence Properties of Hierarchical Co-simulation Approaches

Abstract

In this paper, local error estimates for hierarchical co-simulation approaches are presented. In hierarchical structures, systems with stronger dependencies on one another, which frequently occur in large-scale cyber-physical systems, may be combined in further co-simulations on one or more lower levels. This allows the selection of individual synchronization times for subsystems in these co-simulations. The estimates presented in this paper show that with this approach, no additional errors compared to traditional co-simulation are to be expected: on the contrary, results from the simulation of a benchmark example show that in case of sensible selection of lower-level couplings, accuracy and stability may even be increased as error propagation slows down.