Knowledge-based environment for investigating multicomputer architectures

Multicomputers for massively parallel processing will eventually employ billions of processing elements, each of which will be capable of communicating with every other processing element. A knowledge-based modelling and simulation environment (KBMSE) for investigating such multicomputer architecture at a discrete-event system level is described. The KBMSE implements the discrete-event system specification (DEVS) formalism in an object-oriented programming system of Scheme (a dialect), which supports building models in a hierarchical, modular manner, a systems-oriented approach not possible in conventional simulation languages. The paper presents a framework for knowledge-based modelling and simulation by exemplifying modelling a hypercube multicomputer architecture in the KBMSE. The KBMSE has been tested on a variety of domains characterized by complex, hierarchical structures such as advanced multicomputer architectures, local area computer networks, intelligent multi-robot organizations, and biologically based life-support systems.