Glossary

Component API

An outdated term for Simulator API.

Control strategy

A program that is intended to observe and manipulate the state of objects (simulated or real) of a power system or those that are somehow connected to the power system; for example a multi-agent system that controls the feed-in of decentralized producers.

Co-simulation

In co-simulation the different subsystems which form a coupled problem are modeled and simulated in a distributed manner. The modeling is done on the subsystem level without having the coupled problem in mind. The coupled simulation is carried out by running the subsystems in a black-box manner. During the simulation the subsystems will exchange data. (source: Wikipedia)

Data-flow

The exchange of data between two simulators or between the entities of two simulators.

Example: the (re)active power feed-in of a PV model that is sent to a node of a power system simulator.

End-user API

An outdated term for Scenario API.

Entity

Represents an instance of a Model within a mosaik simulation. Entities can be connected to establish a data-flow between them. Examples are the nodes and lines of a power grid or single electric vehicles.

Entity Set

A set or list of entities.

Framework

A software framework provides generic functionality that can be selectively changed and expanded by additional user-written code.

Model

A Model is a simplified representation of a real world object or system. It reproduces the relevant aspects of that object or system for its systematic analysis.

mosaik API

An outdated term for Simulator API.

Scenario

Description of the system to be simulated. It includes the used models and their relations. It includes the state of the models and their data base. In the mosaik-context it includes also the simulators.

Scenario API

A Python-based API that enables the creation of simulation scenarios. It allows you to start simulators, instantiate models, and generate entity sets. Entities can be connected individually or in sets to establish data flows between simulators.

Simulation

The process of executing a scenario (and the simulation models).

Simulation Model

The representation of a model in programming code..

Simulation time

The “internal” time of the simulation, i.e., the time of the simulated world. In mosaik, this time is measured in steps starting from the start of the simulation. Conventionally, one step represents one second, but this can be adjusted by changing the time_resolution when creating a mosaik.World.

Simulator

A program that contains the implementation of one or more simulation models and is able to execute these models (that is, to perform a simulation).

Sometimes, the term simulator also refers all kinds of processes that can talk to mosaik, including actual simulators, control strategies, visualization servers, database adapters and so on.

Simulator API

Allows for the communication between simulators and mosaik.

Sim-API

An outdated term for Simulator API.

Smart Grid

An electric power system that utilizes information exchange and control technologies, distributed computing and associated sensors and actuators, for purposes such as:

• to integrate the behaviour and actions of the network users and other stakeholders,

• to efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure electricity supplies.

(source: IEC)

Step

Mosaik executes simulators in discrete time steps. The step size of a time-based simulator can be an arbitrary integer. It can also vary during the simulation. Event-based simulators are stepped whenever its inputs are updated (by other simulators). They can also schedule steps for themselves.

Mosaik uses integers for the representation of time (to avoid rounding errors etc.). It’s unit (i.e. to how many seconds one integer step corresponds) can be defined in the scenario, and is passed to every simulation component via the init function as key-word parameter time_resolution. It’s a floating point number and defaults to *1..

Time resolution

In mosaik, how many seconds correspond to mosaik step. See the time_resolution argument of World and AsyncWorld.