Synchronization of a 'Plug-and-Simulate'-capable Co-Simulation of Internet-of-Things-Components

Modern production systems often form Internet-of-Things-systems (IoT). Because of the flexibility those systems are dynamic, meaning the entering of components during runtime, and heterogeneous. For the simulation of such systems, those challenges of dynamic and heterogeneity have to be met by a dynamic co-simulation. An important aspect of a co-simulation is the synchronization of the used simulations. In this contribution, challenges of synchronizing a co-simulation of IoT-systems are introduced and existing co-simulation synchronization concepts examined with regard to their usability for simulating IoT-systems. Afterwards a synchronization concept is presented, which can be used in the presented agent-based co-simulation concept.