Multiplex: A co-simulation architecture for elevators validation

Simulation-based testing has been found to be an effective testing technique for complex systems. One of the prevalent modeling and simulation tools is MATLAB/Simulink, which allows, among other advantages, the integration of software with complex mathematical models and automatic code generation. However, we found a set of limitations with this tool in the vertical transport domain, where different elevator car instances need to be simultaneously simulated during the test and validation stages. To solve these limitations, this paper presents a co-simulation architecture that is capable of simulating several elevator car instances both in a single computer as well as in a distributed manner in multiple computers. We evaluated the approach with an industrial case study. The results of our evaluation suggest that the proposed tool is appropriate to simulate up to 14 elevator car instances simultaneously.