A publication for the real-time computing industry ConcurrentSolutions Volume 16, 2014 GE Transportation Keeps Locomotive ConCurrent real-time StrengthenS allianCe Development and Performance Rolling with with DiamonD ViSioniCS Concurrent Real-Time Simulation Concurrent recently renewed In the United States – and in countries around the world– railroads are important arteries its Value Added Reseller (VAR) for the economy. At the heart of the industry is GE Transportation, a global technology Agreement with Diamond leader and supplier providing freight and passenger locomotives, railway signaling and VisionicsTM, the standard in high- communications systems, and information technology solutions. performance geospatial visual simulation. The Challenge: Achieve New Levels of Performance Without Compromising Through the new agreement, Fuel Economy Concurrent Real-Time will sell and redistribute the Whether deploying freight or passenger Diamond Visionics family of trains, railroad companies must continually run-from-source-data Genesis meet new levels of safety, performance Visualization software products and fuel economy without sacrificing globally. power. These challenges are passed on “Our customers value Diamond to companies like GE Transportation who Visionics’ rich visualization manufactures locomotives that are software products on our delivered globally. ImaGenTM Visual Servers powered by our RedHawkTM The Solution: GE Transportation’s GE Transportation invested in HIL Linux® operating system,” notes Simulation, Modeling and Integration simulation to solve problems and Ken Jackson, Concurrent Vice Team (SimTeam) Standardizes on develop efficiencies before the metal President, Real-Time. “They can Concurrent Real-Time Solutions now benefit from an optimized meets the rail. end-to-end solution for the GE has responded with an investment ultimate high-fidelity visual in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation experience.” A SimTeam engineer points out that diesel where many problems are solved and new locomotives are comprised of a large efficiencies are developed – even before number of electronic, electromechanical, the metal meets the rail. mechanical, pneumatic and operator controllers. The lab’s simulation It Begins with Simulation and Fault environments provide the necessary I/O, Injection plant and behavior models along with Dave Gdovin, Diamond Visionics’ scripted or user-induced fault injection President and Co-founder, Walk into GE Transportation’s Pennsylvania added, “Working more closely SimLab and you’ll see numerous complete to allow engineers to develop new with Concurrent Real-Time closed-loop HIL locomotive systems control algorithms, customer-requested gives us the opportunity to and subsystem simulators supporting enhancements, new products and expand our presence in the all locomotive product lines. All of these services. U.S. and abroad. It has also simulators leverage Concurrent Real-Time Continued on page 3 led to the development of an products. GE Transportation’s SimTeam innovative new product.” has created an environment to help its See related “ImaGen Powered by transportation engineers develop solutions GenesisIGTM“ story on page 4. to address a broad range of customer needs and rail operating environments. ExecutiveMessage in thiS iSSue The Bridge to Success: Interoperability 1 GE Transportation keeps ™ locomotive development • SIMulation Workbench now supports ® and performance rolling modeling environments such as Simulink , VI-grade, SIMPACK, AMESim®, Dymola®, veDYNA®, MapleSim™, CarSim™ and GT-SUITE. No man or company is an island. We We have also added support for the On the I/O side, all work together to achieve success, environment-independent FMI standard with GE is now using and the level of success that we attain support for OpenMP to enable its parallel Concurrent’s new depends on how well we connect with processing mechanism. All of the models can CP-DA3218 other companies and their products. We interact together as well as with hand-written 32-channel, believe that providing an open system C, C++, and FORTRAN® models. In addition, 18-bit analog with commercial-off-the-shelf equipment SIMulation Workbench support has been output card in its provides the best solution with the highest complex simulation added for GenesisRTX from Diamond Visionics, ® systems. performance while maintaining the most rFactor Pro, and PreScan to provide the best interoperable platform. visual solutions for man-in-the-loop simulations. As systems become more complex, the 2 Executive Message component solutions must become more • RedHawk Linux real-time operating system tightly coupled with specific functionality version 6.5 offers an improved real-time 4 ImaGen Powered by to ensure the total system works once it is enhanced 3.10 Linux kernel with the GenesisIG fully integrated. As an example, when you CentOS™/Red Hat® 6.5 user environment, are simulating a car as a whole solution, and support for the latest Intel® and AMD® Concurrent one may want different software modeling motherboards and chipsets. Real-Time and packages for different parts of the car to Diamond Visionics optimize the simulation of the equipment. • SIGnal Workbench™ programmable signal LLC are unveiling ImaGen Powered by This might include different networks such conditioning, coupled with analytics software ® GenesisIG, a new as CAN or FlexRay to make sure that the from our technology partner EDAS, works 4-channel image interactions of the sub-assemblies do not with our own NIST-certified 24-bit Sigma- generation system interfere with the operation of another. Delta analog input board as well as any other for high-performance AI board on the market. simulation and As the complexity of the simulation systems training applications continues to grow, our customers look to • NightStar™ tools now offer advanced us to support multiple software modeling CUDA® 6.0 debugging features including the packages that can interoperate and support for concurrent and hierarchical 5 TechTalk: Parallel Processing communicate in hard real-time. Concurrent CUDA kernels. Alternatives Real-Time brings the best solutions together to share interdependent data and I/O on the Our business continues to grow and prosper 6 rFactor Pro Partners with same system, and we provide our customers because of you, our valued customers and Concurrent with an efficient way to pick and choose partners. We thank you for your continued the modeling software they need to get the support and offer our best wishes for another best results from their simulation. successful year. 8 Concurrent on the Move As part of our continued support for - Ken Jackson, Concurrent Vice-President, interoperability and open systems, we have Real-Time enhanced the following products: page 2 GE Transportation [continued from page 1] The SimTeam originally developed the lab around Concurrent Power Hawk® systems with NightStar tools. With the introduction TM of new Concurrent iHawk multiprocessors Designed on simulators using Concurrent to natural gas on the fly. Natural gas running the RedHawk Linux real-time iHawk computers, Trip Optimizer is what the offers a significantly lower price point operating system, the SimTeam is increasing SimTeam calls “cruise control on steroids.” plus environmental benefits. Concurrent’s testing capacity and, more importantly, The application helps heavy haul railroad iHawk real-time systems are designed its overall test capability using more HIL, companies to efficiently run a variety of to accommodate simulation for that pseudo HIL and virtual platforms. trains on their rails. Trip Optimizer can evolution. virtually recreate a customer’s rail route – Taking Control, Reducing Risk mile by mile – accounting for a number of On the I/O side, GE is now using Concurrent’s new CP-DA3218 32-channel, One of the key benefits of GE factors that affect operating efficiency. 18-bit analog output card in its complex Transportation’s integration SimLab is its simulation systems. With twice the ability to provide an environment in which Staying on Track: Standardizing on number of channels as previous AO cards, locomotive and train control can be safely Concurrent Real-Time the CP-DA3218 allows smaller subsystem tested. Many customer use-cases center HIL test stands to be used for stand-alone around train safety operations. To reproduce GE Transportation began migrating its HIL and HIL system integration. The new these scenarios on real locomotives can simulation operations to Concurrent in Concurrent card fully meets National be a safety risk; therefore the simulation 1995. Since then, GE has standardized on Institute of Standards and environment is the proper place for safety Concurrent products including NightStar Technology (NIST) and failure mode testing. Controlled fault tools for debugging, scheduling and requirements for quality injection allows the SimTeam to duplicate developing model sets running in real- and dependability. the most hazardous and extreme operational time. According to a SimTeam engineering scenarios without putting the operator/ manager, “I have seen these tools evolve The Results: New Economies, test engineer at risk. As a SimTeam project over 20 years. They have been especially Better Performance, Increased manager touts, “That’s the beauty of helpful in optimizing performance, and they Safety cutting-edge Concurrent HIL simulation.” are intuitive and easy to use. In the hands of our senior engineers, there is a high degree Overall, GE Transportation