Performance Measurement of Dynamic Structure DEVS for Large-Scale Cellular Space Models

Dynamic structure Discrete Event System Specification (DSDEVS) is an advanced modeling formalism that allows DEVS models and their couplings to be dynamically changed. The modeling power and advantages of DSDEVS have been well studied, however, the performance aspect is generally overlooked. This paper provides a comprehensive performance measurement of DSDEVS for a large-scale cellular space model. We consider the modeling and simulation layers for performance analysis, and carry out performance measurement based on a token ring model and a fire spread model. The results show that DS modeling can improve simulation performance for large-scale cellular space models, due to the fact that it makes the simulation focus only on those active models, and thus is more efficient than when the entire cellular space is loaded. On the other hand, the DS overhead cannot be ignored and can become significant and even dominant when a large number of cells are dynamically added/deleted.