Physical connection of network components in a graphical computer environment with one-way signal propagation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10719299-B2
Application number	US-201414486527-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 15, 2014
Priority date	Sep 15, 2014
Publication date	Jul 21, 2020
Grant date	Jul 21, 2020

Abstract

A system and method for physical connection of components in a graphical modeling environment. For each component, a physical component subsystem is built by providing at least one functional block representative of a mathematical model of the component, associating one or more first unidirectional internal input ports and/or one or more first unidirectional internal output ports with the at least one functional block, and associating one or more second unidirectional internal input ports and/or one or more second unidirectional internal output ports with the at least one functional block, the physical component subsystem configured to receive first information from an upstream block through each first internal input port, output second information to a downstream block through each first internal output port, receive third information from the downstream block through each second internal input port, and output fourth information to the upstream block through each second internal output port.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for modeling, using unidirectional graphical components provided in a graphical modeling environment, a physical system having bidirectional signal propagation capability, the method comprising:
using a graphical user interface to build, using the unidirectional graphical components, a model of the physical system in the graphical modeling environment; and
using an execution engine to execute the model of the physical system and trace system outputs as a function of time,
wherein building the model of the physical system in the graphical modeling environment comprises:
providing, for each of a plurality of physical components of the physical system, a physical component subsystem representative of the physical component in the graphical modeling environment; and
providing a hierarchically-arranged representation of the physical system in the graphical modeling environment, by interconnecting a plurality of physical component subsystems for representing a relationship between the plurality of physical components and by establishing, between the plurality of physical components, a physical connection providing bidirectional signal propagation, parameter transfer, signal management, and connection error trapping capabilities,
wherein providing each physical component subsystem comprises using one or more graphical modeling environment library blocks readily available in a built-in library of the graphical modeling environment for:
providing at least one functional block representative of a mathematical model of the physical component,
associating at least one of one or more first unidirectional internal input ports and one or more first unidirectional internal output ports with the at least one functional block, the physical component subsystem configured to receive, from an upstream block located upstream of the at least one functional block, first information through each of the one or more first internal input ports and to output, to a downstream block located downstream of the at least one functional block, second information through each of the one or more first internal output ports, thereby establishing a straightforward connection from the upstream block to the at least one functional block and from the at least one functional block to the downstream block, and
associating at least one of one or more second unidirectional internal input ports and one or more second unidirectional internal output ports with the at least one functional block, the physical component subsystem configured to receive third information from the downstream block through each second internal input port and to output fourth information to the upstream block through each second internal output port, thereby establishing a backward connection from the downstream block to the at least one functional block and from the at least one functional block to the upstream block, the established straightforward and backward connection providing the physical component subsystem with bidirectional signal propagation capability provided using only the one or more graphical modeling environment library blocks readily available in the built-in library of the graphical modeling environment.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein providing the physical component subsystem comprising associating a first memory with the physical component, the physical component subsystem built as a masked subsystem using the one or more graphical modeling environment library blocks.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein providing the representation of the physical system comprises, for each of the plurality of physical component subsystems:
providing at least one of one or more unidirectional external input ports and one or more unidirectional external output ports, a first number of the one or more unidirectional external input ports and a second number of the one or more unidirectional external output ports selected for enabling connection of the physical component subsystem to the upstream block and to the downstream block, respectively
connecting, via a first unidirectional connection, an external output port of the upstream block to a selected one of the one or more external input ports of the physical component subsystem, the physical component subsystem receiving the first information from the upstream block through the first connection; and
connecting, via a second unidirectional connection, a selected one of the one or more external output ports of the physical component subsystem to an external input port of the downstream block, the physical component subsystem outputting the second information to the downstream block through the second connection.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein providing the physical component subsystem comprises:
providing the one or more second internal input ports and one or more signal receiving blocks in the second number and providing the one or more second internal output ports and one or more signal sending blocks in the first number;
providing at least one of one or more input blocks and one or more output blocks;
connecting at least one of the one or more first internal input ports to a corresponding one of the one or more input blocks and at least one of the one or more first internal output ports to a corresponding one of the one or more output blocks;
connecting each of the one or more second internal input ports to an output of a corresponding one of the one or more signal receiving blocks and each of the one or more second internal output ports to an input of a corresponding one of the one or more signal sending blocks; and
linking each input block to a corresponding one of the one or more external input ports and each output block to a corresponding one of one or more external output ports.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein providing the physical component subsystem comprises:
providing at least one of a signal grouping block and a signal de-grouping block;
connecting an output of the signal grouping block to an input of the at least one functional block and at least one input block to at least one input of the signal grouping block; and
connecting an input of the signal de-grouping block to an output of the at least one functional block and at least one output block to at least one output of the signal de-grouping block,
the one or more first and second internal input ports of the physical component subsystem comprised of inputs of the signal grouping block and the one or more first and second internal output ports of the physical component subsystem comprised of outputs of the signal de-grouping block.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein providing the representation of the physical system comprises interconnecting the plurality of physical component subsystems with a plurality of the graphical modeling environment library blocks and establishing the physical connection by:
(a) identifying the plurality of physical component subsystems;
(b) selecting a first one of the plurality of physical component subsystems and a first port among the at least one of the one or more external input ports and the one or more external output ports of the first physical component subsystem for which to establish the physical connection;
(c) setting the first physical component subsystem as a current initial physical component subsystem and the first port as a current initial port;
(d) searching for all blocks and corresponding ports thereof directly connected to the current initial physical component subsystem and current initial port at a same hierarchical level of the representation of the physical system, the directly connected blocks comprising at least one of physical component subsystems and graphical modeling environment library blocks;
(e) iden

Assignees

• Pratt & Whitney Canada

Inventors

• Gagnon Jean
• Soukhostavets Valeri

Classifications

• G06F2111/20

  Configuration CAD, e.g. designing by assembling or positioning modules selected from libraries of predesigned modules · CPC title

• G06F30/00

  Computer-aided design [CAD] · CPC title

• G06F8/34 Primary

  Graphical or visual programming · CPC title